How on earth do you measure PR? And should you bother?

My old friend and several-times colleague Dr David Michaelson has now joned Echo research as President of their US operations.

If you want the ultimate bluffer's guide to PR evaluation, check it out in the journal of Public Relations Society of America below:

Best Practice Guide to Evaluation

I have been clinging to this core evaluation structure of: output, out-take and outcome as key comm's metrics for the last decade...and it may well have been David that put me on to that! It's as bit of a Bursons/WPP thing. That doesn't mean it's wrong. Quite the reverse.

What David brings to Echo is real academic research rigour. My only quibble with this stuff (and I know David would agree) is that it's still mostly trying to bring the PR industry up to the level of the advertising industry..

...which is really not saying much in terms of either econometrics or predicting behaviour-change.

David (& co-author Sandra) do acknowledge the subtleties, but if you take their analysis at face value, it leaves a massive assumed link between message absorption and stakeholder behaviour change - which you can partially bridge through message-testing - but who has the money - unless the stakes are very high indeed?

This all begs the question...how far can you really predict whether message out-take will precipitate subtle behaviour changes like sustainable consumerism or changes in influence towards corporate strategy ? It remains to be seen...

And even if you do think you know the right messages - can you really squeeze them past the eager noses of the media hacks? You just don't own the 'means of production' like the ad guys

On balance, I wouldn't fuss too much about 'messaging'. Focus on stakeholder need and understanding the drivers of existing behaviour through direct qualitative interviews with elite stakeholders and good old fashioned insight. Pin your efforts on generating marketing insight, and work back from there.

If you're sitting in house in a corporate comm's job, why not hink of your role as Corporate Marketing - not PR. It will totally change your perspective. If not, and if the UK follows the US...you're about to be out-maoevred anyway...