Measurement PRoponent / PRomulgator

Weekly Measure of Political Satire in Canadian Media

2008-10-07T14:19:00Z

Introducing SatCan: a weekly measure of political satire in the Canadian media, intended to demonstrate how satire frames certain stories, raises social and political issues and generally skewers the powerful. Each Tuesday Toronto-based media content analysis firm Cormex Research will report on the top five subjects that have been satirized over the past week, the relative level of satire directed at political leaders, and the local/national/internationl mix of subjects. Cormex currently tracks the work of over 60 editorial cartoonists in 30 newspapers across the country, as well as well known political satire shows such as the CBC's Rick Mercer Report and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Each item is coded for a number of variables and weighted based on its estimated total audience reach. Enjoy.

Calling all Canucks / MRP Users

2008-09-24T14:25:00Z

News Canada, the folks chosen by the Canadian Public Relations Society's Measurement Committee to build and market MRP (Media Relations Rating Points), the simple editorial scoring and standardized (third party, independently audited) audience reach data providing tool, are looking to solicit feedback from Canadian PR practitioners, ideally MRP users, but others too.

Here's the link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=JtLYMKEUzwk9CIL66nDihg_3d_3d

Please participate and pass the link along.

Cheers

Where's the beef?

2008-08-20T15:14:00Z

CISION (of the former Observer Group & Delehaye variety) commonly puts on a decent, practitioner-friendly research and measurement event each fall in New York. So I was pleasantly surprised that it was coming to Toronto. Disappointment soon supplanted surprise upon reviewing the agenda. While I do appreciate the heculian task of putting an event together (so kudos to whomever did) one would expect a research and measurement conference to have, well, maybe some research and measurement content. Particularly with the visibility and support from IABC. I’m just not seeing how the agenda aligns with how the conference is touted:

“provides the knowledge and insight that communication executives require to demonstrate return on investment for their public relations and communication initiatives.”

CISION, IABC: I’ve known you to be better than this and I know you will again.

Toronto deserves the best you have.

Mini Measurement Conference in Toronto: Sept 10-11

2008-08-18T20:29:00Z

It's approaching that time of year again: the mini measurment conference in Toronto. Why mini? Well compared to the mother of all measurment moments that the IPR puts on every year, it is indeed mini. But, like the car, though small in stature, it is (increasingly) decent quality and it's accessible and practical for PR practitioners.

Conference Agenda:

Day 1

--Developing a Framework & Strategy for Communications Research & Measurement

--Using Media Relations Ratings Points to Score Editorial Coverage

--Approaches to Media Analysis & Tracking

--Monitoring & Measuring Social Media

--Web(site) Metrics for Communicators

--Managing & Measuring Intranet Content

--Client Side Panel Discussion

Day 2

--Gauging Employee Perceptions, Engagement, Alignment, Satisfaction

--Assessing Communications During Times of Change

--Measuring the Ability of Management to Communicate Effectively

Hope to see some of you there.

Social Media Measurement Mojo

2008-03-31T16:23:00Z

I'll be joining global measurement maven KD Paine at two important social media measurement events in Toronto this spring (if ever it comes). Buy a ticket, come on down and contribute to the dialogue:

Joe Thornley's Social Media Measurement Roundtable -- May 20.

MESH --Canada's Web Conference -- May 21 & 22.

...and again at Mass 2 Grass, the Canadian Marketing Association's Word of Mouth Marketing conference on June 12. (Details TBD)

Our day of aTONEment beckons

2008-03-03T15:45:00Z

I've been sitting on this one a while. I've heard a wide variety of definitions of tone in my day. Some from the Canuck media analysis master and soon-to-be Ph.D. @ Cormex, some from the organization of which I am a booster and disciple: The Institute for Public Relations and their commission on measurement. And, a whole bunch from PR practitioners via blogs, events, cocktail chats and around the water cooler.

We've known this for moons, but it's worth revisiting. The industry has got a serious clarity and consistency problem and so our day of aTONEment beckons. I don't normally do this, but the problem rarely sits with those who are trained media analysts, the problem sits with PR practitioners who are moonlighting at it. In fairness to them, most have not been trained on how to analyze media content, generally, and analyze for tone specifically.

My definition of tone? Well, it's really Andrew Laing's at Cormex. I've been schooled by the master. I use it because it's painfully simple and it's clear by design and it works. It's: "the (reporter's) explicit or strongly implicit characterization of (the story's) subject. Content in brackets added. Or, if you prefer, the IPR definition: "Content analysis factor that measures how a target audience (is likely to) feel about the client or product or topic; typically defined as positive, neutral-to-balanced, or negative.

Tone is tone is tone. It's supposed to be (as much as possible) objective. Tone, one media analyst to the next should come out the same. Content analysis, methodologically, has checks and balances built in to test and correct for this. Called intercoder reliability.

What I've seen and heard in the last few months is discouraging. I've heard things like:

1. We got almost everything we wanted in the article--so that's positive.

2. We got a call to action mentioned in the article--so that's positive.

3. We got a front-page, colour photo of our product--so that's a positive.

4. We were the only company in our industry mentioned--so that's positive

5. We got into the publication we wanted--so that's positive.

6. The piece included a key message--so that's positive.

No. Those may speak to the presence of other important variables or indicators of the relative quality of the coverage, but the fact that they are present does not have any bearing, in my view, on tone. Tone is tone is tone. What's potentially beneficial to the client cause isn't necessarily tone.

Evangelizing the Gospel of Measurement

2008-01-28T17:59:00Z

Shameless self-promotion, perhaps, but content that PRoponent / PRomulgator readers might find amusing nonetheless.

1. A bit about measuring stakeholder relationships on the Inside PR podcast

2. I've been out evangelizing the gospel of research and measurement to students. One program wrote a particularly on-target summary. Bright students. Great questions.

Ask for feedback, but only if it's good.

2008-01-09T17:17:00Z

So this measurement wonk took an Eastern Caribean cruise over the New Year. I've cruised many times with many different cruise lines. They are not all created equal. I knew that. You get what you pay for. I forgot that one. We admitedly cheaped out a bit given the pricey time of year.

So, come time to provide feedback (which every single crew member repeatedly urged us to do) I went to work on the feedback form. I'm encouraged that they thought to ask for it. It's also a brilliant piece of strategy (or perhaps characteristic of the line's complete anarchy style to service) that they give you the feedback form after you've tipped and before you get the final bill. They have medical staf with stretcher on standby for that part.

The form itself was well-constructed and seem to ask all the right questions. The trouble is, though their scale was set-up to be beneficial to them. They were asking for feedback but only let you provide positive feedback. Hello?!

Example:
Please rate us on our food: Exceeded expectation, met expectation, room for improvement.

What?! Where's the 'neither exceeded nor met'? Where's the 'did not meet' and the (poorly worded but you get the idea) 'did not come close to meeting expectations'? We can praise them to the high heavens, but only slam them with a flacid 'room for improvement.'

KD Paine to Host CGM Measurement Webinar (er) Telinar

2008-01-09T17:03:00Z

New Hampshire-based measurement maven KD Paine is hosting a webinar (teleconference) this afternoon (Wed., Jan., (9) at 1-2 pm EST. There's a faceboko group built 'round it: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7852080711&ref=nf and the call-in is 1-605-475-8590. Enjoy.

Strategic Forethought not Tactical Afterthought

2007-12-07T15:53:00Z

…a cheesey but useful slogan I use in dozens and dozens of lunch ‘n learns, client meetings and speaking engagements to drive the much written about (Jim Grunig, KD Paine, Mark Weiner, multiple contributors to and members of the IPR measurement commission) theme about the importance of using a data driven / focused / centric approach to communications. Bringing science to the art if I can borrow a theme from the IPR.

It’s not (at least exclusively) about measurement. It’s about research. In fact, as many who do measurement for a living would say, I don’t see the distinction between the two. And when I say this in lunch ‘n learns, client meetings and speaking engagements, this is where I feel like I’m starting to loose half the room.

I say that we (the industry writ large) often think of measurement as something that comes exclusively at the end of a campaign and research as something (if it’s thought of more than strictly as a pitch hook) that is formative pre-campaign. And while unfortunatley and in reality there may be some truth to that, it’s also ture that we use one to accomplish the other. We use research to measure. Research IS measurement. Measurement IS research. They are one in the same. They are part of the same continuum. They are part of the same thought process.

While I’m not a huge fan of the RACE (research, analysis, communication, evaluation) formula, at least it urges us to think about the “R” and the “E.” The irony, however, is that the industry is often in such a race to get a pitch or a plan out the door and to get to the end of a campaign that it’s all too often heaved to the curb. We’re often so focused on telling that we’re not listening.. Research is listening. Critique of the RACE formula aside, there’s a reason why it’s in text books. It works.

Perhaps it’s largely the speed, among many other reasons (budget, expertise, fear) that sets up a situation where the industry gets bogged in the micro tactical, silo’d, episodic measurement muck. It’s difficult but necessary to pull up and out of that micro measurement muck and look at the macro and strategic. And that macro and strategic view is hardly rocket science. It’s a management by objective approach that can be applied to any discipline.

When stuck in the muck, it can be useful to look at examples of projects that have done it right. Where research has been used strategically, at the right stages and in all the right ways. The award-winning case studies on the IPR’s website, for example, are a source of inspiration.

Survey on PR Measurement & Evaluation

2007-12-06T22:37:00Z

Contribute to the industry collective. Weigh in with your perspectives on and practices in communications measurement and evaluation. Take part in the international survey of PR measurement and evaluation here. Hat tip to KD Paine for the link. Can't wait to see these results.

Mini Measurement Conference in Toronto

2007-11-21T21:56:00Z

Well it’s that time of year again. Cross border shopping in the U.S.? No. Frantic Christmas shopping? No. It’s time once again for the bi-annual (and somewhat modest in comparison to others) measurement conference in Toronto, February 14 & 15. Though the agenda’s growing a bit stale (we’ll fix that) it is an informative and insightful attend for those struggling with and new to measurement issues.

VMS Launches Measurement Blog

2007-10-30T16:47:00Z

Gary Getto of VMS is the primary author of a new measurement blog (the more the merier) called The Integrated Perspective. (Hat tip to PR Week’s In Brief feed for the heads up). Congrats and good luck with it, Gary. Looking forward to keeping tabs on it.

PR Measurist's blog

2007-10-29T15:08:00Z

A new measurement blog’s been drawn to my attention. Well, new to me, not new to the bloggie sphere: The PR Measurist written by Michael Young, an SVP at Access Communications. Young asks, and ultimately answers seven questions that inform something that he calls the ‘Measurement Maturity Model’. Fancy moniker and a fancy chart. Not sure I’d completely agreee with all the types and colours in the model (and what’s measurable and what’s not and I’d point out that measurement in this specific context is really editorial measurement, NOT PR measurement), but it’s a reasonably thoughtful, interesting and at least level-headed read. Enjoy.

Feedback from CISION-A-PALOOZA

2007-10-25T20:08:00Z

Perhaps some Canadian and Toronto-based readers of this blog attended, as I did this morning’s breakfast event put on by CISION called: Proving PRs Value Through Measurement.

Kudos to CISION for taking something like this on. If the number of attendees was their measure of success, then they clearly met their objective. It was one of the better attended measurement events in moons. Free admission and free lunch aside, it’s a topic that the practitioner set always want to hear about.

With the exception of the line in the invite that said “understand the value and attributes of various measures such as advertising equivalanecy (yikes), something I took issue with last week, it appeared promising. Promising not so much because of the wording of the invite, as it was due to the fact that a heavy hitter from the organization formerly known as Delahaye was on the presenting hot seat.

Frankly, I’d have expected more. While there were, in fairness, some noteable nuggets, there are a few things that struck me as problematic. In no particular order…

First, they called it “proving PR’s value through measurement.” I didn’t see proof and they’re not measuring PR, they’re measuring media coverage. There’s so much more to communications measurement than media coverage. I’m confident Delhaye knows that, it’s just curious that it wasn’t acknowledged. That the presentation threw terms like net “effect” and “impact” at us worrys me. We’re talking about measuring, albeit in a reasonably sophisticated, more sophisticated than most are used to seeing anyway, but not in a new way, the quantity and quality of coverage. Full stop. Using terms like effect and impact in this context is misleading because we’re really talking about the POTENTIAL to affect and POTENTIAL impact. Eyeballs don’t equal impact. It would sure make my work life easier if it did. To measure that, you’d need (one among many examples) to take the research one step further into polling and look at linking polling data to the media content analysis. What’s weird is that I know Delhaye does this kind of work and other fancy methods like market mix modelling and they are often, rightly, held in very high regard for the work they do. So why didn’t we see some of that? This was hardly putting their best foot forward.

Second, one of the problems with the CISION version of a net effect score (though I appreciate what they are trying to do and it’s atleast commendable that they reduce the number of impressions based on the quality of the article) is that it assumes that everyone that receives a copy of a publication or everyone that had an opportunity to see the aritcle, DID see it. Obvious flaw there. Doesn’t acocunt, for example, for the different consumption patterns of heavy vs. light readers.

Third, their position on advertising equivalency was a source of debate. I understand the point that it can be useful in some contexts if we use it not in absolutes (x$) but in relative terms (it went up 10% month over month). But, I though it could have been more clearly articulated and it’s a difficult concept to get across and a tough sell when you have an audience that–rightly or wrongly–has grown accustomed to seeing it as a no no. A friend and colleague of mine likens the use of AVEs as being like smoking. We all know we’re not supposed to do it, but many of us do.

Fourth, this idea that if a message is present, it must be positive. Not so. Rare, but a message could very well be dragged into the article and countered by an industry analyst or a critic. We saw this all the time at Cormex Research. It’s an important variable to track. That’s not accounted for in the CISION methodology.

So, again, kudos to CISION for putting this on. You can’t please everyone. It’s important that the industry keep hearing about and talking about measurement if we are to continue to sharpen our collective measurement pencils. But I worry sometimes about events that claim to talk best practices and don’t fully deliver