Seat at the Table

The purpose of media relations is ultimately about impacting a targeted audiences opinion and, potentially, driving behaviour (purchase a product, lobby for a piece of legislation etc).   So when so many measurement methodogies focus on analyzying the volume of media, it’s refreshing to read about how to project how a media campaign impacts opinions and behaviour (though ultimately the best measurement is to simply survey the audience).  This came up as I read a paper on media measurement from the Institute for Public Relations called  Perspectives on the ROI of Media Relations Publicity Efforts.   

The basic concept is to focus not on the reach , or how many people could have seen a media placement, but on the impact, which is how many people actually saw the placement and took action (change of opinion, purchase of a product etc).  That can be a very big difference.  Granted, many executives just want to see big, ego-stroking numbers internally, but many also want to truly understand the impact of their investment in public relations activities.

The formula in paper breaks down not only how many people see the message (as oppposed to simply being exposed to it – or reach), but the different affects it could have.   For example, a placement in a magazine with 500,000 readers might break down as follows in the chart to the left.

Depending on the program, numbers 2-4 may all be important – especially if it’s not a well known company or issue that simply needs to first raise awareness.  For a well known company or issue, the focus is probably on 3-5 (comprehension, attitude and behaviour).  With these numbers, PR can then go after that holy grail and do a direct comparison to advertising by measuring how many people see an ad in a magazine and what effect it has. 

What I like best about this approach is that it completely skips over reach, deeming it irrelevant.  Who cares how many people an article reached if only a fraction of them actually read it.  Of course, becuase there is so much pressure to deliver big impression numbers, many measurement systems rely first and foremost on reach (using words like circulation or impressions).   In my experience, much, if not most, of this direction comes not from public relations, but from marketing though public relations often does not do enough push back.  But that’s for another post…