
Jim Macnamara's "Measuring Up"
A series of recent blog posts got me going because they raised – yet again – the hoary old goat of a single PR metric. Or perhaps that should be the hoary old flying pig of PR metrics. If ever there was a creature of folklore and fantasy, this is it. But, rather than being a harmless creature of myth, the single metric of public relations continues to divert the industry from meaningful progress. Its fruitless pursuit soaks up a lot of effort and time that could be productively devoted to getting on and measuring PR.
Despite being disavowed by many leading thinkers in the field, "for many in public relations measurement, the Holy Grail is a single, powerful metric of success," as Don Bartholomew wrote early this year in his MetricsMan blog.
What is intriguing about this ongoing debate and fruitless search is that even a cursory glance at other closely related fields of practice show that the chances of finding a single metric are about the same as finding pigs that fly. For instance, there is no single metric used in market research. Imagine trying to reduce all the various things that market researchers need to measure to a single metric.
Similarly, in social research there is no single metric. Even the highly developed media ratings business has a range of metrics for various media including Target Audience Ratings Points (TARPs), Cost Per Rating Point (CPRP), Cost Per Thousand Members of an audience (CPM), recall, Opportunities to See (OTS), visits, Unique Visitors, duration, return visits, click throughs, and so on. Researchers in other sectors of marketing and corporate communication use a range of methods including surveys, response mechanisms, diaries, peoplemeters, internet logfiles, tags, etcetera.
Why does the public relations industry think that there could be a single metric for expressing the value and contribution of the diverse range of practices deployed under the broad heading of "public relations" ranging from analyst relations to social media? And why does the industry beat itself up trying to find such a single PR metric?
What is recognized as important in other research and media metrics fields is that basic standards are important. These do not specify a particular metric or a particular measurement product, but they establish a framework of what types of things are worth measuring and what methods are reliable in doing so. The Institute for Public Relations in the U.S. and a number of other bodies have, to a significant extent, established standards – although these could be more formalized and simplified into a "how to" and "how not to" guide for practitioners.
From a review of PR measurement literature in both academic and industry journals, Anne Gregory and Tom Watson in the UK concluded in a late 2008 paper published in the Journal of Marketing Communications that there is a substantial gap between what researchers and PR scholars advocate and what practitioners do, and that this gap needs to be closed. Gregory and Watson also concluded that the answer is not a single metric. To the contrary, they concluded that a range of measures are available and need to be more widely promoted and used. For instance, they suggested that practitioner-developed dashboards that collect and display a range of metrics together – both informal and formal – need to be given greater attention, rather than hierarchic models which suggest optimum outcome level measurement.
As the developer of one of those hierarchic models (the Pyramid Model of PR Research), I must point out that it would be a misinterpretation to conclude that such approaches advocate any single measurement. Rather, they emphasize the importance of recognizing outcomes as a more advanced level of measurement than outputs, and in fact the Pyramid Model lists more than 20 metrics available for various PR activities. However, Gregory and Watson have a good point in emphasizing the need to look at practical considerations as well as normative ideals in measurement.
While
that does not mean abandoning standards and producing metrics that
are questionable (such as so-called Advertising Value Equivalents
which are a measure of cost, not value, and do not apply to many
online sites) a grounded approach of what is available and doable
will always have to be integrated with Best Practice high level metrics
when these can be generated. Metrics reported also have to be geared
to the expectations and needs of senior management. ![]()
Also, there are significant differences in requirements for evaluating an internal newsletter compared with a multi-million dollar campaign. And measurement must be related to objectives which vary from increasing awareness to creating behavioral change. That means multiple metrics are inevitable, necessary and sensible.
Jim Macnamara
PhD, FPRIA, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC
became Professor of Public Communication at the University of
Technology Sydney in 2007 after a 30-year career working in journalism,
public
relations and media research which culminated in selling the
CARMA Asia Pacific franchise which he founded to Media Monitors in
2006.
He worked as Group Research Director with Media Monitors - CARMA
Asia
Pacific following the sale and continues as a Consultant with
the Group.

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