This one of three articles in this month’s issue that report on AMEC’s recent annual Global Measurement and Evaluation Summit:
Good communications saves lives
To me, the most relevant of the AMEC Summit presentations was by three researchers from the British National Health Service: Alex Aiken, executive director of government communications, Katherine Hunt, head of insight and evaluation, and Matthew Walmsley, deputy director of insight, evaluation, and behavioral science. (See “Communication Accountability: Planning, Purpose, and Proof.”)
They told an amazing story of how they not only kept the public informed but measured their program and improved it as they went. Their every decision was shaped by weekly reports on media coverage, the public’s levels of worry, and behavioral indicators like social distance, wearing masks, social gatherings, and relative cost. They developed bespoke statistical models that tied communications to decisions made, social behavior, and infection rates, and factored in costs to decide where to most efficiently allocate resources.
Their achievement is particularly impressive given that they developed the system virtually overnight. One day they were, in their words, “just kind of doing a normal health communications job.” And then the next they were responsible, “for keeping all the British people informed and knowledgeable about what to do and not to do during COVID.” And just because infection rates are now down, it’s not like the metrics end. Most remarkable, the most recent data shows that there is “a strong base of public trust and satisfaction with government performance to build on.”
Their learnings are something every country should take to heart:
- Effective communication starts with effective policies. Research influences both.
- An iterative and agile process underpinned by consistent principles and ways of working delivers results.
- Collaborate, trust, and share as far and as wide as possible.
- Land the right evidence in the right way at the right time.
- Provide the evidence as well as the solution.
- Evaluation is about gradual improvement, not overnight perfection. ROI takes time to achieve.
Their ultimate measure of success was that they prevented 1.5 to 1.8 million infections, which saved between 22,629 and 27,658 lives. Kind of makes metrics like impressions and AVEs irrelevant, doesn’t it?
Media coverage impacts startup funding
In another interesting study, Darryl Sparey of Hard Numbers teamed up with CARMA to investigate the extent to which media coverage affects the amount of Series A and B funding for startups. (See their presentation “From Coverage to Capital.”)
They found that companies with the lowest increase between the first and second rounds of funding also had the lowest amount of media coverage. Sparey suggests that there is a link between media coverage and funding. He also looked at this effect for B2B vs. B2C, and found the correlation to be stronger in the B2C sector than in B2B.
The pandemic provides the perfect proof
Paula Diaz of Buho told the story of how her team developed the perfect internal communications model, but then discovered a fatal flaw. (See her presentation “The Opportunity in the New Reality.”) Their model neglected to account for water coolers, i.e., in-person communications. After months of searching for a way to deal with this effect, the pandemic provided one. With in-person conversations gone, their model could show the true impact of communications on corporate culture, employee likelihood to recommend, retention, and business impact. Because of all that, in fact, we named her this month’s Measurement Maven! ∞
Image above thanks to “Communication Accountability: Planning, Purpose, and Proof.”
