Berlin stirs up a hornet’s nest
July 1, 2009 at 9:47 am 2 comments
Did you know there are two Berlins? The other is in New Hampshire, USA, and is where Katie Paine, a *PR measurement guru / blogger / twitterite* is based.
Katie has been busy in Berlin, NH writing up her thoughts on what was said in Berlin, Germany at the recent Measurement Summit, and in particularly on the global measurement survey of communication professionals undertaken by Benchpoint for the Summit.
Highly recommended!
Richard
Entry filed under: Communication evaluation, PR evaluation.
intelligent measurement 
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Angela Jeffrey | July 10, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Richard, I’ve finally had a chance to read Katie’s take on your Benchmark global measurement survey of communications professionals for AMEC, and in many ways, I agree with her – counting press clippings or other output metrics ALONE is not measurement. People who just do that are not measuring much of anything. However, I appreciate that you clarified to me that most people who did the survey checked at least 4 other choices for measurement tools they use – so we know that people use press clippings and basic output metrics in conjunction with other measurements to get broad perspectives. I doubt many people today would be caught dead using press clippings alone!
We have found in our research that one has to measure outputs in some fashion in order to correlate them to hard business outcomes. So the key is to measure them precisely using the best possible qualitative and quantitative metrics. Only then does one have a relatively good chance of generating a decent correlation, or to perhaps derive proof of cause through regression or experimental analysis. The other reason to measure outputs is for diagnostics. If we don’t know what part of our campaign actually contributed to the outcomes results, we won’t know how to replicate it next time.
What strikes me most about measurement discussions is how little attention is paid to the linkages BETWEEN outputs and outcomes. I’m in the middle of judging PR awards right now for a major publication, and am amazed at how few state clear objectives (as per your post above), and how few attempt to really link or correlate their work to the outcomes. There are such bigs leaps of faith, it seems, that we ask clients and management to take as we lay out our outputs, and then claim outcomes results that may have had nothing at all to do with our programs. I guess the net net is there’s yet much work to be done in this space!
Anyway, great job on your survey, and I’ve enjoyed reading yours and Katie’s discussions.