The Dumbing-Down of "ROI:" Shel Holtz Makes Sense of It

The way PR measurement uses the term "ROI" has always pissed me off: It is at the same time both the creeping erosion of language and the tacit admission of the PR measurement industry that it can't do real ROI.

In many circles -- especially around the board room table -- ROI is still employed for its original meaning: "Percent return on a financial investment." PR measurement, however, has borrowed ROI and generalized it to mean "what you get for your effort." 

And when we try to communicate with financial or board room types, this dumbing-down makes us look, well, dumb. 

In a recent post, Shel Holtz put his finger right on this problem:

"...every time we go to executive management and claim we’ve achieved ROI using calculations that are out of synch with their understanding of what ROI is, we undermine our own credibility and reinforce the perception that communications people just don’t understand business."

Read his post. And understand that "measurable results against business objectives" can be just as powerful as ROI. But the terms are not synonymous. --Bill Paarlberg, Editor, TMS