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The words ‘Achilles’ and ‘heel’ often come to mind when PR professionals discuss measurement. How do the self-proclaimed owners of ‘earned media’ evaluate effectiveness when we are often perceived to measure output rather than outcomes, even in a digital age? 

For those who are implementing social media, citizen journalism, digital PR campaigns – call it what you will, this has become an even more urgent question – and for too long have responded with a most dissatisfying answer. As the digital opportunities form and reform with each new blog post, video upload and 140 character musing, we’ve steadily moved towards the classic moment when a big question has to be addressed. How will we measure it?

In these difficult economic times, where budgets are being re-evaluated and ROI is even more scrutinised, we as an industry need to justify our slice of marketing budgets by focusing not solely on output (CPM, AVE, etc) but on the ability to measure effectiveness like never before. As an agency that has turned inside out to transform itself into an organization where Digital Influence runs through everything we do, this has been at the forefront of our mind. The fact that 84% of social media campaigns are not measured1 is a huge opportunity for those of us who focus on evaluation when analysing the digital fruits of our labour. How we measure the impact of social media is a question that is not only fundamental, but is answerable in the here and now, with software doing a good proportion of the legwork.

We do have an opportunity to be more rigorous given the rise of technology solutions. At a tactical level, the adoption of social media releases (SMR) for example has proved invaluable in shaping the way we now engage with stakeholders and measure the impact of our outreach. Whilst working on the 50th anniversary of Barbie earlier this year, a project targeting multiple international markets, we were able to shape the campaign around the creation and distribution of broadcast and online video content via the SMR, ensuring the story reached a global audience in a cost effective, measurable and impactful way.

The ability to tag, monitor and measure the impact of video content in particular is also shaping the way brands are leveraging this most powerful of communication tools. As the thirst for video continues to grow, so has the need to demonstrate its effectiveness to clients in helping to communicate the brand’s key messages.  The adage that ‘good content will always find an audience’ still rings true, but now is the time for us to embrace the ability to demonstrate the impact of this content rather than focus disproportionately on the ‘perceived’ effectiveness and output of our campaigns. The rules of third party engagement have evolved rather than revolutionised over the last few years, providing PR with the ability to tangibly quantify behavioural change through more scientific metrics.

The Holy Grail is simplicity and comparability in media measurement. As a result, John Bell, President of WOMMA worldwide and an Ogilvy digital leader, developed the Conversation Impact™ model. Born out of a need to align closer to widely accepted marketing and reputation building models, particularly the ‘purchasing funnel’, it places a bigger emphasis on measuring behavioural change rather than solely focusing on ‘traditional’ metrics. This has to be way forward in my view. The challenge is for us all to focus on the big objectives and outcomes while forensically exploring the granular range of new digital tools to support us in this process.

It’s about time that we who deal in social communications do the same. We need to come together and take an “open-crowd-wiki-sourced” approach to it and set some benchmarks and agreed parameters we are all happy with. We should be able to shouldn’t we? It’s called SOCIAL media after all…

1E-marketer, August 2009

Hot on the heels of the recent launch of OgilvyEarth, our sister sustainability practice, we’ve commissioned a study about businesses’ and consumers’ current views on CSR commitment. What it shows us is that regardless of the fears in the business community, consumers’ loyalty to ethical and social issues is holding up during the recession. We believe that now is the opportunity for business leaders to prove that they’re sincere and truly committed to CSR promises. 

In partnership with research firm Populus we’ve interviewed over 2,000 British opinion formers and consumers. An overwhelming majority of those business leaders (67 per cent to be precise) see trust in companies’ CSR issues as a key aspect for corporate success. At the same time, over a third of business leaders think that companies, which scale back on CSR during the economic downturn, will regret the decision come the recovery.

The survey results also prove that recession has done little to curb consumer demand for products with social and environmental credentials. Nearly 40 per cent of consumers are actually more concerned with environmental and social issues than they were before the recession began. There is also a growing trend to put business under more scrutiny. Some 29 per cent of consumers admit to paying more attention now to a product’s environmental and social credentials compared with 12 months ago.

In our view one possible victim of the recession is consumer trust in businesses’ commitment to sticking to their word on sustainability. Surprisingly enough, only one third of consumers expressed confidence in UK companies to remain committed to their social and environmental promises.

To see what the papers and trade’s have being saying about this check out the Financial Times,  The Independent, PR Week or UTalkMarketing.

Ross will provide strategic leadership and manage existing key client relationships, such as FM Global and LexisNexis.  He will also concentrate on Ogilvy PR’s ongoing CSR practice as well as managing the launch of OgilvyEarth.  Ross reports to Ogilvy PR’s EAME managing director Ash Coleman-Smith.

Ross was previously international practice group director at Edelman JCPR.  Prior to that Ross led a network of 35 country agencies for Edelman’s global Royal Dutch Shell account. During his eight years at Weber Shandwick, Ross was client leader for the EMEA ExxonMobil and the UK Siemens accounts. He has won multiple industry awards, including the IPRA Award for the Best Government Campaign for the 2004 European Parliament Election.

“I liked Ross’ hunger and passion for our business and was impressed with his tremendous experience in steering international account teams for big multinational clients. With the London office continuing to grow and the market becoming even more competitive he will play a key role in the next stage of the corporate team’s development,” says Ash.

This week we have a piece of poetical musings about the subtle nuances of the world of PR from our very own Clair Whitefield, Account Manager Extraordinaire…

Enjoy.

IF..

If you can keep your head in the midst of a media storm

Keep your enemies close and your contacts warm

If you can master word counts but not let word counts become your master

Crack deadlines by getting sign off faster

If you can hold off a journo with a well placed retort

And still have time to update your status report

If you can work with comedians and lawyers and treat them both the same

Brief photographers, track coverage and media train

If you can seize AND save the day

Take the most demanding brief and still make headway

If you can juggle a celebrity guest list

And perfect the art of the air kiss

If you can tell a good story and also sell one in

Be broadsided by a client and take it on the chin

If you can restore reputations, trumpet causes, build brands

Raise awareness, give counsel, hold hands

If you know the name of niche trade publications

And can manage expectations

If you can craft copy and surrender the by-line

& get talent to the interview on time

If you can pick up the phone and be ready to pitch

To reporters from Newcastle to Redditch

If you can write a proposal and celebrate a client win

& cut down to size those who say you practice spin

If you can keep your head in the middle of a media storm

Keep your friends close and your contacts warm

If you can meet a last minute request with an open smile

And always be prepared to go the extra mile

If you can, then you’ll succeed and go far

And have marked yourself out as a my kind of  PR

In early Autumn 2008, the future for long-haul travel in 2009 looked bleak.  It’s still not fantastic. But, despite stories that Brits were only going to have holidays at home - forever - a different picture is emerging.  A couple of bank collapses, plunging oil prices and a shy, nervous pound later and the prospect of a Summer break in Rhyl can be balanced with somewhere slightly more exotic and tropical.  Now long-haul destinations look good value for the holidaymaker; a prospect to lift the gloom.  If South East Asia or Africa don’t appeal, perhaps Brazil or Chile could be an interesting option?  All we need now is the removal of the ridiculous 100ml rule and a softening on airline surcharges.  Can these be far away?

by Rosie ‘Robinho’ Robbins  The OPR London EMBRATUR team (that’s Viviane Borges, Imogen Lovell-Smith and me) held an event recently to launch the latest advertising campaign to promote Brazil as a tourist destination, in the private cinema at London’s Courthouse Hotel. The highlight of the girls’ night was meeting Luiz Felipe Scolari, a.k.a. Chelsea FC’s coach, now fondly known by English football fans as “Big Phil”, who came along to lend his support to the new campaign. The team all agreed that he was the nicest celebrity we’ve ever had the chance to work with - posing for photos with every single one of the event’s 131 attendees, including the Guardian’s deputy travel editor Gavin.The broadcast team was also represented shooting for Embratur’s internal archive. Here’s Adam’s ‘mental’ video contribution for this post…