The Thoughtful Thud Revisited

It needs the PR and evaluation industry to tango!

Dr.Tom Watson, fresh from the battle ground of chairing the judging of the AMEC awards for PR measurement and evaluation, is both encouraged and challenged at how PR consultancies approach evaluation.

He shares his thoughts in his blog DummySpit. His bottom line is that when media evaluation is combined with qualitative research on political and social issues, very powerful and valuable insights can be offered. He has also seen a “growing confidence” amongst evaluators with more offering well-based consultancy advice to clients to demonstrate a growing maturity in the business.”

Dr. Watson’s comments come at on the day that talks to agree the biggest bail-out in history of the US financial industry have disintegrated, fueling more uncertainty about the economy. Whenever there is economic uncertainty, two things typically happen in the PR sector.

1)        PR and other agency clients watch their budgets carefully, often taking a prudent view by trimming back

2)        PR consultancies realise the importance of what they’ve got and client retention and client service becomes the name of the game it always should be.

PR companies can prove their worth in challenging times by using independent evaluation companies to show the value of their programmes. The industry knows it makes sense because this year’s PRCA Benchmarking Study reveals that one of the Threat’s to Success identified by Agency CEO’s is lack of evaluation of their programmes. It is a factor considered to be even more important, or more of a threat, than the increasing importance and role of procurement specialists.

It takes two to tango. So, what about the PRCA and AMEC working to get measurement and evaluation back on the consultancy agenda through a campaign run by the PRCA and AMEC. We need a return of the type of barnstorming initiative with PR Week that produced the “PR Proof” campaign. If nothing else, it put evaluation on the agenda!

Dr Tom Watson is Deputy Dean (Education) and Reader in Communications at Bournemouth University’s Media School in England. He is also a member of the Commission on Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation

I don't feel alone any more!

 

 

Salutary warning to all communications professionals this week that their hand-held devices contain valuable data. Apparently nearly 60,000 hand-held devices were left in the back of black cabs during the past six months, most of them mobile phones.

My Friday thinking wonders whether the memory loss happened because they forgot they had put the device on the back seat because

 

-       They were engrossed in their Blackberry

-       Talking on their mobile

-       Reading

-       Good lunch/dinner/drinks?

 

As someone who has to plead guilty to the odd taxi loss, I feel strangely reassured by the figures, though staggered at their size!

What you see and what you hear is what you trust

 

If I was an account planner in a PR consultancy or ad agency, I would be adjusting my next pitch document already to include the implications of a new large-scale media trends study.What the study by media analysis and evaluation company Metrica of 13,000 UK consumers shows is that for all the talk about traditional media being dead, eaten alive by new media, it is showing a stubborn unwillingness to lie down!

We’re talking trust here. Which channels people trust the most. The real surprise is how well traditional mainstream media – print and broadcast – perform when people talk about trust. By comparison, only online new sites in the digital space perform strongly. Blogs are….well, not on the trust scale!

Trust in national broadcast media is up 24% to 70% compared to 12 months ago. Trust in radio is also turned up to 61%. What is really interesting and a sign perhaps of the way people are sourcing their content, is that online news sites score higher than national newspapers, with a trust rating of 54%.

Nevertheless, national newspapers have improved their trust level the by 17% to 43% and regional press has maintained kept steady, up 1% a year ago to a trust score of 50%. But some mixed messages for agencies who have invested in dedicated digital capability.

·                     Only 34% of UK adults now say they trust internet content.

·                     Only 29% felt they could trust a customer review site.

·                     Only 5% said they trusted blogs.

·                     And not even 1% of respondents said they trusted online forums.

Client service is about walking the client corridors

A new advertising campaign from airline Flybe reminded me of an important agency client servicing principle which becomes even more important at a time of industry fears about fee cuts. Flybe's new campaign line is: “Visit Your Client. If you don’t, your competitor will. That’s the bottom line”. It’s a reminder that however regular your phone or email contact is with your clients, there is no substitute for going to see the client, to walk the corridors. Be seen. Of course it has an impact on the hours utilisation forecast. Savvy agency management though would take a view on that, because there is no better way to build business than through the relationships you form in spending time with the client. Before, as the Flybe line reminds us, your client tells you: "we've decided to move agency because we don't seem to be as important to you any more". What that usually means is that another agency has showed the client more interest and commitment in their their business through establishing a rapport than only face to face meetings can establish.

Let clients decide on PR's reputation, not a desk study...

September is the start of autumn and therefore the end of the traditional newspaper “silly season” for news. However the “silly season” is still alive and kicking judging by so-called “new research” by news monitoring service, Newslive. PR week headlined it Press critical of PR 'fluff' and announced in their intro: PR has failed to shed its 'ab-fab' image, according to new research into press coverage of the profession. Nonsense: this kind of “study” proves nothing about the image of PR. You would have to talk to clients, or at least talk to journalists to get that rather than a 500 clip piece of desk research.

 

What would be worth doing is for the PRCA and the CIPR to get together and sponsor an AMEC-managed media analysis of the profession? We all believe, after all, that editorial presentation influences consumer awareness and perceptions.  

 

Man or Mouse - will the real English Bulldog be allowed to return?

Here’s an idea for the soon-to-be-appointed new Performance Director of UK Athletics following our disappointing showing at the Beijing Olympics. As well as the “athlete by athlete” athlete to athlete review that is being promised to allocate funding, we need a national campaign for the Return of the British Bulldog..

It’s a traditional, rough and tumble playground game which has decline as schools went all PC and worried about injuries and personal injury actions.

Bring it back. It might result in fewer obese children and more sporting stars of the future who have grown up hardened to what competition really means!

Messaging and the Fog over the Tyne….

 

 

I’ve just finished a major messaging exercise. They’re always hugely professionally stimulating because human nature being what it is you always start off with far more messages than you need or ultimately end up with. And that is confirmed by research by Metrica which demonstrates that the fewer key messages an organisation has, the better their delivery tends to be.

 

 

I couldn’t help think of that today in the reputation shambles that is the shame of a glorious football club and the supporters who uphold its traditions in the game.  Here’s where the messaging becomes undecipherable. The Newcastle Board says it has not sacked its manager, the Geordie Messiah, Kevin Keegan. The League Managers Association confirm that King Kev has not resigned and will not resign. The fans are threatening a boycott to show their displeasure to the wealthy owner who is apparently shaken by the passion of the fans reaction. What more to consider? Oh yes and the manager’s position is being undermined by others brought in by the owner and by the manager's disappointment as a loyal and proud man to find that the Board was apparently trying to sell players without his knowledge before the Transfer Window ended.

 

 

Meanwhile Britain’s top bookmakers are not taking bets on whether Keegan will be at the club in one week’s time.

 

 

Other clubs may have more money than Newcastle. But however rich the owner and whether he is the Middle East, Russia or anyone else, you can't buy passion like this. Like Keegan feels because he knows what it's like to play for Newcastle. A manager who inspires passion in his players and the raw passion of a crowd base that not only gives him their total support but which fills the huge stadium every week?

 

 

How do you message a “kiss and make up” after that? I remain optimistic....that another owner will give King Kev the kind of respect for his ability to buy flair players that the current "management" have denied him.