What’s going on in the big wide world of communications measurement? Each year we poll our partners and friends around the planet to get their perspectives on the latest developments in international communications measurement. This year, eight correspondents report on the view from their own parts of the world:
Richard Bagnall, Chairman, AMEC; Global Strategy Consultant, PRIME Research:
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017?
A: The biggest was the launch and widespread adoption of AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework and resource centre. New functionality allows users to create accounts and save and edit multiple frameworks for multiple clients and campaigns. It’s now available in 18 languages and is in use all over the world with over 500 separate users having created accounts. Users report that it is really helping them have the important conversations with clients at the onset of campaigns and before activity begins where they define success in meaningful and credible ways. A key strength is the ability of the framework to operate as both a planning tool and a measurement process – it is really helping to forge this vital link.
Q: What do you see on the horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: Further industry consolidation is guaranteed. It will lead to more launches of new consultancy-based businesses looking to plug the gap of experience and expertise that the headlong rush towards SAAS and tools has created.
Nanette Besson, General Manager at evaluamus GmbH, Edingen, Germany:
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017?
A: Nothing worth mentioning. Evaluation is not a top topic in Germany at the moment.
Q: What do you see on the horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: I see vendors creating their own tools and selling them—without big public notice. I see the market concentration continuing and I see very critical measurement employer’s evaluation (kununu) due to low payment and high stress level. I see a lot of old measurement companies have disappeared or were sold.
In total, I would say measurement has a hard way to go. Still, hope is there, because PR measurement is integrated in PR education and study. And there are (big) companies that invest a fair amount of budget in measurement. Viele Grüße.
Fares Ghneim, Managing Director, Insights & Media Analysis, Middle East & North Africa, for CARMA
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in your region in 2017?
A: Communications evaluation in the Middle East & North Africa region has traditionally focused heavily on quantitative measures: how many press clippings and where, along with all the derivative statistics that come with that. While there were always a few organisations that looked at more qualitative measures, 2017 has seen an increased interest in the evaluation of content as opposed to quantity. We are noticing that clients are focusing on such things as the impact of communications strategies on target audiences and reputation tracking. Social media is making it imperative for organisations to become more sophisticated in what they are tracking.
Q: What do you see on your regional horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: Social media will continue to gain in importance. At the same time, news consumption will become more personal in the years to come. Linear TV is on its way out and instead of waiting for a scheduled program, people can watch what they want, when they want on services such as Netflix. Similarly, with print media struggling to survive, it’s not just that fewer people buy newspapers, they’re also not necessarily logging on to newspaper websites. Instead they are using Google news and platforms like Flipboard that allow you to get news around your topics of interest
Corporate communications strategies will have to engage consumers on a personal level, both because of changing media consumption habits as well as due to wariness of direct corporate messaging and skepticism toward big business.
As such, the metrics we look at will evolve; media content will be analysed alongside data such as sales figures, customer surveys, stock prices, etc. Corporate functions that own the various pieces of data—such as PR, marketing, sales, and customer services—will increasingly have to work together to more accurately determine what works and what doesn’t and to identify trends in time. Overall, measurement/analysis will become less about brand visibility and more about perception and reputation.
Marjana Harcet, Media Analyst at Kliping d.o.o., Slovenia:
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017?
A: At Kliping d.o.o. we notice two major changes regarding communications evaluation:
- Rise of the importance of social media that needs different evaluation than classical media. The tools that are available on the market usually offer the statistical data about engagement which can only partially answer to the needs of clients. Therefore we are challenged to develop new indexes and new methods that program algorithms cannot offer.
- In social and in classical media we notice the shift from the statistics to content. The goal is to deliver the answers whether the KPIs of clients were met and to answer to their “so what” question. Therefore we see as the challenge the cooperation with clients in order to:
- Define clear objectives;
- Help them to have better and effective interactions with customers;
- Monitor to see if the communication was relevant or not;
- Combine and compare the insights from media monitoring of classical and social media.
As new standards in development of communications evaluation we found relevant TheMediaBriefing’s State of the Media 2017 report. The report takes a look at 12 key publishing sectors, laying down the major trends in each… As we see it, the trend goes in direction of individualization and real time analytics. Therefore we see these two as the main challenges for measurement and analytics.
Accordingly, we might be able to talk about a trend or new “instant information” standard. Analytics and measurement must provide up-to-date, real-time information and operate with tools that allow this. For this purpose, to offer relevant, real-time information and reports to our customers, at Kliping d.o.o. we use clipping alarm and daily reports that we deliver to our customers instantly as they come in and/or are uploaded to our platform.
Q: What do you see on the horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: We estimate that the trend will be favored towards individual data insight. Communication evaluation will be based more on qualitative analysis information and less on quantitative statistics. In everyday business the evaluation analysis will be based on how effectively communication revolves around different KPIs of clients.
Beside the need of instant information, we need the products that are operational on different technologies (smartphones, tablets, laptops …).
Among challenges on the horizon we also see the issue of fake news. For media monitoring of classical and social media the challenge is fact-checking. While instant information is valued, relevant and reliable news is of the utmost importance. In this respect we see two possible solutions:
- Use of platforms as for instance FactCheck.org or this article at TechNorms, and similar.
- In-house analytics in combination with media monitoring and media analysis.
Fraser Likely, Lecturer, Communication Department University of Ottawa; President, Fraser Likely PR/Communication Performance, Ottawa, Canada
Here is my list of accomplishments for 2017 – at the 3/4 mark at least:
#1. The 2017 book Evaluating Public Communication by Jim Macnamara. If you’re in the international measurement community as a researcher, evaluation and measurement service provider, agency consultant, or in-house CCO or resident measurement specialist, this book must be read. Simply ask yourself:
- What’s the difference between evaluation and measurement?
- What are the units of analysis for which evaluation is possible?
- What are the stages in an evaluation model?
- What are the three types of research in a communication campaign?
- What’s logic modeling and how would I use the concept and process in my work?
Don’t buy the book if you can answer these questions.
#2. The 2017 book Communication Excellence by Ralph Tench, Dejan Vercic, Ansgar Zerfass, Angeles Moreno, and Piet Verhoeven. If your work in the international measurement community is about outputs and outtakes, then don’t read this book; it will make you sick. That is, if your work involves media and social media metrics, this book is all about outcomes and impact (or outflows). It’s for serious evaluators, not simple measurers. Evaluation leading to excellence communication departments.
#3. The article Macnamara, J., & Likely, F. (2017), Revisiting the disciplinary home of evaluation: New perspectives to inform PR evaluation standards. Adds program evaluation and logic modeling to communication outcome evaluation approaches.
Mary McNamara, Founder, McNamara Research, Wellington, New Zealand
Here’s the New Zealand perspective (read more about Mary here; she’s our Measurement Maven of the Month!):
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017?
A: New developments are around monitoring and the automatic metrics that are so well-priced now. Smart monitoring companies understand the whole media footprint and how to show the value of news amplified in social media and where their own content goes. Monitors can do comprehensive quant work and understand qualitative work is best left to a researcher. I’ve been able to form some good relationships with U.S. organisations.
For me this has meant marketing, insights, and management are more interested in my work. I have to keep lifting my game by reporting on digital performance as well as media. I’ve stayed relevant by introducing more technology and collaborating with data scientists and marketing specialists.
Q: What do you see on the horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: Executives will want business reporting rather than communications reporting. They will want integrated results: seo, share price, sentiment, NPS, and/or engagement. I’m being asked to explain the links between these scores. Companies are happy to spend more money on advice now that data is cheaper. I expect to see more integrated marketing and PR measurement tools emerge, and hopefully become more standardised.
Clients are moving away from activity reporting and want to understand cause and effect. Now they know what real insight looks like. For example:
- An energy company might look at all the news and views around a broad topic like sustainability to collect a broad understanding. They will search across peer companies and organisations in other fields. The purpose is to look for the latest developments and inspire new direction in their own teams. They will also test news messages about sustainability in their investor briefings and see if these messages result in positive news and social media; customer research; and ultimately share movements and customer acquisitions. There will be some in-house disagreement in the business about what part of the business drove which outcome. The management and board don’t worry so much as long as things are moving in the right direction and research can inform good decisions. They will keep on figuring this out.
- An industry group might want a dashboard report that links to blogs, sites, articles, and even TV and movies. The data would reveal patterns about their industry and where the future is moving. In New Zealand, an industry like tourism would see this as a type of cultural barometer that records the emerging media landscape and international user experience as recorded through media. The industry might want to understand how overseas visitors feel about our precarious roads, our beautiful scenery, and our endangered species. What else are they seeing in the popular media and how much will they pay in our and other markets?
The biggest trend is for companies and government to want evidence of how their audience has experienced their product or public service through a media lens compared to market research or some other feedback loop. They then want to track this and compare it to business outcomes, whether this is more sales or some type of changed social behaviour like paying tax on time, quitting smoking, or driving safely.
Although the government has just changed in New Zealand, there is a big movement toward empirical evidence and improving social outcomes through using smart data.
In my view there have always been two types of communicators. One type are OK with counting and they can buy any number of monitoring products—pretty much all automatic and really well-priced now. The other type knows what insight looks like in 2017-18. They are not interested in a summary of media activity, but rather want a communications professional to work with them to “see through” data and ask the question why. The answer is unlikely to be a simple number and more likely to be something surprising—not obvious. Something they wouldn’t have seen themselves. That is why media research is of more value than ever.
Philip Odiakose, Lead Consultant, P+ Measurement Services, Nigeria
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017?
A: One of the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017 is the “Say No to AVE” campaign which was met with great plausibility here in Nigeria.
The AMEC Measurement Month that recently took place in September, 2017, played a major role in sensitizing public relation professionals, communication measurement experts, and like minds on what measuring and evaluating public relations/communication entails.
The “Adoption of AMEC Integrated Framework” is another significant development to highlight. This has helped in sensitizing brands on how to effectively measure and evaluate their campaigns and also debunk the myth that “PR campaigns cannot be measured.”
Q: What do you see on the horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: We (at P+ Measurement Services) have been involved in educating clients and communications professionals why “SayNOToAVE” and we can see the trends changing towards the use of better metrics. Also:
- A globally acceptable standard of calculating Audience Reach of clients’ media coverage in traditional and new media.
- Low level of awareness on the use of better metrics.
- Availability of better tools to assist measurement experts in evaluation, in order to reduce constraints on individuals.
- How to effectively track fake news on clients.
Caroline Roy, Vice-president, Mesure Media, Montreal, Canada
Q: What were the significant developments for communications evaluation in 2017?
A: The significant development we’re seeing this year is a growing appetite for data among public relations professionals in Quebec and Canada. More than ever, we’ve noticed that many organisations (profit and non-profit) want strategic data to improve their communications management. Canadian PR professionals are progressively developing their communication plan and strategies based on data and performance indicators.
It may seem obvious to us, specialists in PR measurement, but in Montreal where we are based, it is a major evolution for the public relations community!
Q: What do you see on the horizon in terms of tools, standards, mergers, strategies or anything else?
A: From our point of view, social media measurement remains a challenge. We’d like to focus on tools and standards for measuring influencer performance. Many of our clients work in the tourism sector and collaborate with influencers. To better evaluate the ROI of influencers, we’re working to develop relevant scores and performance indicators. These tools and methods for evaluating influencers may be in high demand in 2018!
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