The world's experts in research and public relations measurement and evaluation came together in Barcelona this past week under the umbrella of AMEC (the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication). The CIPR's Measurement Group joined with organisations such as the Global Alliance for Public Relations, the IPR's Commission on Measurement and Evaluation, the PRSA and the ICCO to agree a set of measurement and evaluation principles. The Barcelona Principles, which will be refined based on detailed participant feedback, will be built on by AMEC and its partners over the coming months and years.
I guess the standout headline from the principles is that "AVEs are not the value of public relations" - a strong statement that participants hope will allow the PR profession to move forward and to develop more sophisticated techniques that measure organisational impact.
The principles are listed below and we will review and consider these as we update the CIPR's guidance on measurement and evaluation. One thing we want to ensure is that the breadth of public relations activity is reflected in our guidance - so media and non-media activities.
You may be interested in listening to Philip Sheldrake, Chair of our Measurement Group run through the principles and interview AMEC's Executive Director Barry Leggetter and Katie Delahaye Paine of KD Paine & Partners (the 'Queen of Measurement'!) about the conference output:
And I use the word 'output' diligently. As you may note from the principles and from the audio, the PR profession must move from measuring outputs towards evaluating outcomes, and, of course, whilst we now know the output of the conference, the outcome remains to be seen. As Katie Delahaye Paine points out, it is up to us to provide and assert the consultancy and guidance to our clients and/or our own organisations.
Each principle will be explained in more detail in an accompanying explanatory text from AMEC, due for publication soon, but for now the headlines are:
- Goal setting and measurement are important
- Media measurement requires quantity and quality
- AVEs are not the value of public relations
- Social media can and should be measured
- Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results (outputs)
- Organisational results and outcomes should be measured whenever possible
- Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement.
We'll be sure to let you know as soon as the AMEC team has taken the feedback from conference delegates into account and finalised the detail.
Barry Leggetter and other members of the AMEC team are joining me and other members of our Measurement Group on the 6th July for a roundtable at Russell Square. This will also help the Social Media Measurement Group achieve its objectives for 2010 (part of our broad review of M&E guidance), as listed on its wiki, specifically the updating and communication of the CIPR's measurement and evaluation policy.
Note: You may also find a previous interview Philip Sheldrake conducted with Katie Delahaye Paine, 20th June 2010, of interest:
6 comments
Hi,
The Barcelona principles look laudable and it is positive to see the industry seeking a gold standard. Where can we read more detail about the principles and/or the discussion from the conference?
One of the challenges I've had over the years, both as an agency and in-house PR manager, is justifying the budget required to measure outcomes based on traditional CIPR principles of surveys of opinion before and after a campaign (I'm simplifying of course). We have used AVEs not because they are the best measurement, but because they are a measurement, can be tracked at relatively low cost and can be understood by non-marketers.
What consideration has been given to scalable solutions which meet the broad principles of Barcelona but are affordable for those working with smaller budgets?
Kind regards,
Steve
Good post, Jay, and thanks for promoting the "outputs" of the AMEC and IPR conference. It's exactly this kind of cross-industry collaboration that will be critical to the success of the Barcelona Principles, as well as other industry standards and best practices. I'm proud of the progress we made last week as an industry to obliterate the "PR has no measurement standards" myth. Now we need to continue to educate, advise and up-level the measurement conversation within our agencies and client organizations.
Thanks for the comments. Tim - completely agree that it is about education and pushing the measurement conversation. Steve, AMEC will be publishing supporting information soon, which will provide more detail. Re: affordability, each campaign is different and some outcomes may be evident through existing internal capture mechanisms - this is where integration is also important in terms of making use of the feedback loops that already exist in the organisation (customer service or sales for example).
Following the Barcelona Principles debate, AMEC is engaged in a consultation with all delegates. In the interests of the bigger conversation (and because the CIPR is a member of the Global Alliance, one of AMEC's Barcelona Partners) I'm happy to share this Consultation Draft of the Principles based on the input at the Summit session:
http://amec.cmail1.com/t/y/l/birujr/l/r
AMEC is also committed to working closely with the CIPR's Measurement Group and we have a meeting in London very soon.
I wish the participants well, but I think the flaw is that the principles are the work of people with a right and proper objection to flaky methods of measurement, not by clients who are banging their fist and demanding something better.
From the evidence of new business briefs that continue to say little more than "we want to build awareness of our brand" I'd say that the appetite for measurement that is the clear product of precise objectives is overstated and the vague and in some instances daft wording of these principles (you cannot for example replicate a campaign) is unlikely to inspire anyone to seek something more ambitious.
There has to be an incentive for buyers of PR services to want and demand better measurement.
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and hardly found any specific details on other sites, but then great to be here, seriously, thanks...
- Josh