This article is designed to help readers at Measurement Sherpa Level 1.
Have you ever sat at your desk looking at multiple reports generated by different departments or agencies and realize you can’t find any insight in any of them because none of the terms or metrics are the same? The consequences can be frustration or worse.
If you receive multiple measurement reports that use conflicting terminology, then this convenient reporting template will save you a lot of headaches. Just send it out to any and all of your of your agencies, measurement providers, offices, and subsidiaries.(Personalize it by filling in the blanks in the “Quote” section.) It provides guidance on standard language to use when coding clips and reporting results. When your your organization, it’s agencies and their vendors adhere to this terminology you will more readily be able to compare their reports. Plus, this template conforms to the new measurement standards, so you’ll know your reports are in compliance and following best practices.
By the way, the problem of trying to reconcile multiple measurement reports that do not use common terminology is one of the reasons the standards were written. You can read all about the testing that has been done to validate the standards in “An Examination of the Validity, Reliability and Best Practices Related to the Proposed Standards for Traditional Media,” an excellent paper by David Geddes, Ph.D., Julie O’Neil, Ph.D, and Marianne Eisenmann, MBA. It includes an invaluable Sample Media Codebook that will walk you through how to apply the new standards to media analysis.
And if you have more questions about how to implement the standards, take a look at Paine Publishing’s Standards Compliance Curriculum. It includes nine separate articles covering everything you need to know to bring your measurement program up to industry standards: specific case studies, white papers, presentations, videos, and checklists.
The Standard Reporting Template for Media Analysis
| Element | Standard Definition and Methodology |
| Item | The standard terminology to identify a clip, story, article or hit is considered an “item.” An item to be included in a media analysis or reporting could be an item in a newspaper, a segment of a TV program, a transcript of a radio broadcast, a tweet, a blog post or any other type of content. |
| Mention | In general, the counting of mentions is not recommended. Any individual item might contain multiple mentions or its competitors. The number of mentions of a company is sometimes used as an indication of the extent to which that particular brand or company dominates the item. However, in shorter items, particularly in social media, this assumption may be false. In any analysis, if one is counting the number of mentions for , a similar calculation must be done for all competitors. |
| Impression | Impressions are based on a variety of sources including circulation figures from print publications, Nielsen or ComScore data for broadcast, Compete or Alexa data for online media. Consistency is virtually impossible to achieve on a global basis. Unless all affiliates are using the same sources for impression data, we do not recommend reporting impressions.The standard definitions are as follows:
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| Wire Stories | Press release pickups generated from “controlled or paid vehicles” such as posting an item on PR Newswire or Business Newswire do not count as a valid item. Wire services like Dow Jones, AP, Reuters, etc. are NOT controlled vehicles. Items appearing from those wires DO count as a valid item. If a wire item is updated multiple times in one day, only count it once in a 24-hour period using the latest, most updated version. If an item appears in both the online and print version, both items should be “counted” because the readership is different for each channel. Wire stories are not assigned impressions. Only the media in which the wire item appears generates impressions. |
| Duplicates | Items that are reprints or syndicated that appear in different publications should be included as long as they appear in unique, individual media titles with different readership and different URLs. |
| Date | The date recorded should be the date of publication. For monthly publication enter the first day of the month. |
| Types of Stories |
o Column: A bylined, regularly scheduled advice, review, opinion, gossip or humor item. o Opinion Piece: A stand-alone, bylined item advancing a personal opinion rather than reporting news or facts. o Letter-to-the-Editor: Typically appears opposite the editorial page i.e., Op-Ed of a print publication. The latter two are more likely to contain emotive language.
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| Tone/Sentiment | Tone should be determined based on the overall impression that the item leaves on the reader. Prior to beginning any evaluation, you must define from whose perspective they are judging the sentiment. Is it from the point of view of the general public or a specific stakeholder group?
To simplify reporting further, group positive, neutral and balanced coverage into a single category and call it “desirable.” |
| Prominence | Prominence defines that likelihood that your brand will be seen or remembered. If your brand appears in the headline or top 20% of an item, it is more likely to be remembered. Therefore you will want to record whether the brand appears in a headline or the top 20% of a story, in the body or is just a minor mention. |
| Dominance | Dominance is the degree to which your brand dominates an item. If the story is only about your brand it is considered “Exclusive.” If the item mentions your brand among one or more other brands, it is considered “average.” If it only mentions your brand in passing, it is considered a “minor mention.” |
| Quotes | If a person is quoted in an item, note the type of spokesperson. For example:
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| Share of Voice | Share of voice should be calculated based on the total number of items about a particular event or within a particular time frame. For example, if the total number of items about an event is 100 and 10 of those items mention your brand, and 5 mention a competitor, you have a 10% share of voice and the competitor would have a 5% share of voice (10 items/100 items = 10% share of voice) .If there is no competitive coverage, or if the competition is not active in your marketplace at the time, there cannot be a calculation of share of voice. |
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Thanks to Jason Young Live for the image.
