David, you're half right

David Phillips raises some interesting ideas in his comment about the Canadian MRP system, but I have to take issue with one thing he said in his comment

"I think a lot of this media evaluation stuff is just not worth the effort. It is being done for people who, because of their very demand for it, will be disintermediated out of a job in a few months."

I think he's wrong on two counts. First of all, I think a lot of managers today are demanding results, not for justification purposes, but for the purposes of making better decisions. Face it, there are just too many options out there these days to rely on your gut instinct. To blog or not to blog, to blog or to podcast, to Search Engine Optimize? To pay for placement or not? These are the questions that PR people face every day and you can't make decisions this important without data to back them up.

And David you're also wrong about people asking for measurement being out of a job. Most measurement wonks I know have used their PR research programs to get raises, promotions, more responsibility, better jobs, and in some cases retirement packages that enabled them to afford mult-million dollar coastal homes.

Comments

[Katie Paine]

We're totally in agreement about measuring scream marketing? (Love that description by the way.) If you're talking about the marketing mix modeling measures, I agree, but you have to admit they are definitely an improvement over measuring eyeballs. And I think more and more people ARE measuring relationships, mostly because the blogosphere makes it easier to do, but at least they are looking at the nature of the conversations taking place.

[David Phillips]

Thanks Katie.

But, I just can't see the Marketing as we know it having relevance in a world that is disintermediating so fast.

Stroking a wounded tiger is a poor defensive tactic and PR has to leap over marketing and develop relationship building as its core competency.

The measures are all wrong.

Measuring the volume of scream marketing only measures amplitude not effect.

Relationship building, is at a conversation level.

In the right conversation one article carries all the Google Juice. In the hundred snatches of words a shouting match, people turn off.

Absolutely right that people are getting jobs and better jobs because they can and do monitor, measure and evaluate. That is core and pivotal but this is not the point.

Why people monitor, measure and evaluate is the key.

Just to satisfy a Marcom bigshirt is the worst of all reasons.