The Thoughtful Thud

Berlin: springboard for an industry?

Historically meetings have been held in Berlin before which dictated the shape of the future. My own view is that many communications professionals will look back on the 1^st Summit on Measurement with the realization it was the moment the evaluation industry came of age!

These were my take-outs of the three day event attended by nearly 200 people from 28 countries:

·         The frightening speed of media change means that AMEC members need to have a deeper understanding of what the growth of newspaper content licensing means to their business.

·         Ironically it is a recession that could be the biggest boost to raising the awareness of evaluation, because when budgets get cut, client programme owners have a bigger need to prove the value of programme effectiveness. See the results of the International Business Monitor released to coincide with the Summit. http://www.amecorg.com/amec-news/news.asp?id=48

·         One senior client speaker, Neil Martinson, challenged the evaluation industry to a consultation process (accepted!), to determine whether the best measures to track ROI and are the right standards are in place. Neil is Director of Press & PR for the COI, the UK Government’s centre of excellence for marketing and communications which runs 150 PR campaigns annually.

·         There is a level of highly sophisticated work taking place by AMEC members to measure digital communications, helping to kill the often repeated myth that social and online communications cannot be measured.

·         My own sense of disbelief after 25 years in senior level consultancy was that the PR industry was not in the room! In Berlin we had fine speakers from Ketchum and Edelman and had the involvement of Jay O’Connor, President-Elect of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. We also had the German Public Relations Association as our partner. But why is the PR consultancy world so apparently apathetic? When we run the Summit again in 2010 I’d like to hope that our Workshop Day in particular is crammed full of PR professionals wanting to learn from top international speakers – which was the opportunity largely missed by the PR industry in Berlin.

 

MP's scandal in Britain shows watchdog role of the newspaper works

As newspapers search for the formula that will keep them competitive in the face of new digital challenges comes a timely reminder of the peerless the value of the newspaper – its role as public watchdog.

 

In the UK, the Daily Telegraph has pulled off a remarkable journalistic scoop with its still-running expose of the way that Members of the British Parliament had abused the expenses system. It is a story which will lead to huge change in the British Parliamentary system. Unconfirmed reports estimate that the Daily and Sunday Telegraph have put on an extra circulation of more than 600,000 copies.

 

But what The Telegraph also reports today that the scandal has also boosted interest in local newspapers and given titles a new sense of community urgency. Papers have been quick to demand explanations publicly from the Member of Parliament representing their area. In one case, the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph ran an additional 6 pages for Readers Letters such was the sense of local feeling.

 

It is a reminder of the value and of the watchdog role of newspapers in modern society. It also brings commercial success. Meanwhile, perhaps more good news for the paid-for newspaper model as The Independent newspaper reports that free newspapers are “in retreat”.

PR leaders say evaluation is important but AVE's linger on

 Another overwhelming vote of confidence in the value of evaluation to PR programmes comes from the Public Relations Consultants Association in the UK. In a Poll of Industry Leaders out today:

·                95% of agencies considered evaluation important or very important

·                Almost 50% of agencies carry evaluation in-house with 53% using in-house and evaluation companies

 

Surprisingly though, 37% of agencies still use AVE, but only 2% use it as their sole evaluation technique, with the majority including it as part of a dashboard.

Can newspapers continue to cut it? The story continues

In UK and European media the hot topic right now continues to be the future of newspapers, discussion around how news is being repurposed  and heavy focus on the impact of content licensing on business models. In the US, the focus is the protection, and one might call it survival, of the American press. In a story “Laws That Could Save Journalism”, by Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown in the Washington Post the writers believe that the answer is for Congress to act. Here are their thoughts:

·                Bring copyright laws into the age of the search engine. Taking a portion of a copyrighted work can be protected under the "fair use" doctrine. But the kind of fair use in news reports, academics and the arts -- republishing a quote to comment on it, for example -- is not what search engines practice when they crawl the Web and ingest everything in their path.

·                Publishers should not have to choose between protecting their copyrights and shunning the search-engine databases that map the Internet. Journalism therefore needs a bright line imposed by statute: that the taking of entire Web pages by search engines, which is what powers their search functions, is not fair use but infringement.

·                Such a rule would be no more bold a step than the one Congress took in 1996 rewriting centuries of traditional libel law for the benefit of tech start-ups. It would take away from search engines the "just opt out" mantra -- repeated by Google's witness during the Kerry hearings -- and force them to negotiate with copyright holders over the value of their content.

·                Federalize the "hot news" doctrine. This doctrine protects against types of poaching that copyright might not cover -- the stealing of information not by direct copying but simply by taking the guts of the content. While the Internet has made news vulnerable to pilfering because of the ease of linking from one site to the next, the hot-news doctrine has limited use because it is only recognized in a few states

They argue: “The law of the Internet was written for the technology companies seeking to protect their growth in a once-fledgling medium, not for the journalism outlets that are now handicapped trying to survive there. Regulatory reform is needed because the playing field has become so uneven.”

Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown are partners in the Washington office of Baker Hostetler. They specialize in media and First Amendment law.

 

 

What price content?

 

If you work in the media world, one subject will be exercising board room conversations right now – what price content?

Ever the consummate newspaperman, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, summed up the newspaper industry’s view in one sentence. “We are in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content, and it is clear to many newspapers the current model is malfunctioning,” he said. Murdoch then announced plans to start charging for online content from general interest newspapers such as The Times of London.

Today the Financial Times devotes a full page to what it describes as a challenge to the foundation on which most content owners’ digital strategies have been built.

Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com acknowledges the scale of the challenge facing newspaper publishers in moving to a pay for content model. He said: “A “free evangelist movement [convinced] everybody that the internet was somehow different and any attempt to impose a business model was an imposition on people’s human rights”. In other words, says the FT, changing that perception will mean nothing less than challenging the culture of the internet as we currently understand it.

Another insight into content comes from the powerful Hearst publishing group in the US. Hearst Magazines, part of the $4.38 publishing dynasty, believe the future is about “re-purposing content” so that the magazine of the future will comprise these component parts:

·         Printed magazine

·         Web

·         Mobile site

·         -e-reader

·         TV programme

·         Radio show

It’s what Cathie Black, President of Hearst Magazines calls the 360 degree brand aimed at reaching the consumer in “multiple touch points”.

The current status of content licensing is to be debated at the 1^st European Summit on Measurement being organisation by AMEC and the IPR in Berlin in June.

The year social media came on the map

A new report by AMEC member Metrica will be of interest to all communications professionals as it clearly shows that for the UK at least, 2008 was the year that the media needle moved for social media as a major PR channel.

 

Metrica Numbers is an annual report which consolidates media analysis meta-data from more than three million press articles over the last decade to enable industry trends to be identified. As well as top line findings, it looks at key breakdowns by media type, sector and specific media titles. Key findings are:

·                Online coverage more than doubled in 2008 from 11% in 2007 to 25%.

·                Broadcast coverage has been declining over the last two years.

·                Business press has shown consistent and strong growth over 10 years.

·                Regional coverage continues the downward trend in evidence now for over ten years, down another 23% from last year, but remains the most important media type for PR professionals, accounting for 37% of coverage in 2008 (46% in 2007)

·                Regional press continues to perform well for PRs in terms of favourability (93% of regional coverage is favorable)

·                In terms of message delivery, regional press is more likely to convey a key message than the national press (55% against 33%).

 

One of the great beliefs with many clients and PR consultancies is that social media cannot be measured. We will aim to kill this myth once and for all at the 1st European Summit on Measurementin Berlin. Nevertheless, this lack of confidence in ability to measure is considered by Metrica to be a major factor behind the low proportion of social media within online as a media type. The Report comments:  “The issues and debate regarding monitoring social media….is in turn inhibiting the inclusion of social media in media evaluation and PR measurement programmes. “

 

Metrica Matters also makes the point that the growth in online coverage over the last 12 months has been largely driven by publications either moving their print publication online only, or producing a smaller hard copy so that more editorial is appearing solely in the online version, as well as the emergence of new online titles.

To obtain a copy of Metrica Matters go to http://www.metrica.net/contact/content4c.aspx

 

When saying "sorry" could be the right thing to do.....

 

Is it publicity stunt or a daring and refreshing change by the new Editor of the London Evening Standard to mount a publicity campaign saying “Sorry” for the way the paper has lost touch with Londoners?

 

Apologizing to readers for its previous “behaviour” is certainly daring and follows research by Editor Geordie Greig, which discovered readers found the Evening Standard too negative, did not celebrate London and indeed consistently talked it down.

 

A great city needs a serious evening newspaper. It has a new owner and this move is another indication of a fight back following its decision to keep news-stands open late at night at main London rail terminals. Unsurprisingly the move has resulted in a big sales boost. It will be interesting to see how the new “Sorry” campaign, executed through advertisements on London’s buses and tube network can begin to reverse the sales lost to free papers.

Talk to Me - PR Measurement as part of the language of business

A practical reminder of what company managers want from communications measurement comes in a fascinating e-book from Dow Jones Insight. On its own, the nuggets found in “Talk to me - 10 tips for translating the PR results into the language of business“would help any PR consultancy run a lunch-time brown bag 101 on PR programme measurement.

The e-book was written by Diane Thieke, Executive Director, Public Relations & Strategic Communications for Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group Dow Jones Insight, who issues a challenge that today’s public relations measurement practices need to change.

 

Diane makes a case for change, stating: “The metrics we share with business executives must demonstrate PR’s strategic contribution to the organization. To do this, PR metrics must tie to company objectives, link to the bottom line, and perhaps most importantly, be forward-looking.” These are some of Diane’s e-Book tips:

·                Take control of the measurement process without waiting for a directive from management: it means you are seizing the initiative without being asked.

·                Learn to speak the “language of business” by putting your measurement metrics in line with the language used by senior managers. Remember that the terms commonly used in PR measurement, such as share of voice, are likely to be conspicu­ously absent from discussions with executives who use terms like market share, key performance indicator, leading indicator, customer retention, risk management and competitive benchmark.

·                Don’t be a one-trick pony and measure just one form of PR activity, such as print media mentions because it undermines your understanding of PR strategy. Instead use a combination of data to provide a complete picture.

·                Executives want to know how the company’s results compare to other companies in their industry and putting this kind of benchmarking in place enables you to tell management how their company is really performing.

·                Understand what your management wants from you. My blog (The Thoughtful Thud) speaks to the reality that less is more (than the heavy thud like book of a pile of cuttings that were once the norm).Diane believes how you present your measurement report is crucial. Too much – and they won’t read it. Too little – and you have lost a major opportunity to demonstrate your strategic value to the organisation.

Great sentiment - will others act on it?

Love these PR surveys! Creating a new public holiday would turn the second-best St. George’s Day (that’s today) around from an event that has lost relevance, according to a survey of 7,000 users of social website MySpace. St George's Day needs a "radical refresh" - including workers being given the day off, Twitter addict Stephen Fry being made patron saint of England and the Sex Pistols song God Save The Queen made the English anthem, according to the new study.

UK PR Leaders acknowledge recession importance of evaluation

PR consultancy leaders in the UK report that lack of evaluation is the fourth biggest threat to industry success (out of 13 threats to business), in a new benchmarking poll. The lack of evaluation threat lies behind the top worry of the impact of the economic slowdown; clients exercising commercial pressure and competitors who “buy business”.

This is a very strong message for the measurement and evaluation industry. AMEC is ready in turn to take a new initiative with the Public Relations Consultants Association in any way to help turn what leaders see as a threat into a business opporunity.

 

PR firms can also start the process themselves by attending the 1^st European Summit on Measurement, organised by AMEC in Berlin on June 10-12. It’s a showcase of the best international thinking on how to use evaluation.