Is media coverage the measure of PR?
By Editor on Mar 26, 2007 in measurement
I have seen some of the biggest PR agencies in India, and have seen PR executives working together with many global agencies for various clients. One thing I noticed is that everywhere, at the end of the month, we provide our clients monthly dossiers of the media coverage we achieved for them. I often wondered if these dossiers are for the clients’ records, or is it rather to show them our achievement. While providing thick dossiers of media cuttings might look impressive, I think we shouldn’t let the clients mistake them for our deliverables.
How many of us believe that media coverage is all the measure of the success of any PR campaign? As we are in the business of public relations, shouldn’t the ‘publics’ be what we should have our focus on? The media is just the tool to reach out to the ‘publics’.
So shouldn’t there be some kind of measurement that shows how much influence we have been able to make on the target audience? It shouldn’t matter so much which medium we use to reach out to them – be it the media, events, newsletters, direct interaction programmes, or whatever.
Our client meetings sometimes start and end discussing on which newspapers could be targeted. Shouldn’t we rather be discussing how to reach out to the target audience and what all we can do to reach out? I think as long as we restrict ourselves as agencies for facilitating media coverage, clients can never see value in us as consultants who can help them in making their communications programmes, and PR as a profession will be seen as a mere press cuttings generator.
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On Mar 26, 2007, Asha Rai said:
We have been promising a lot of news coverage over the years that it’s difficult to separate PR from press relations. This is improve gradually.
On Mar 27, 2007, bella said:
Hey HH,
I totally second with your post, this made me think, why do we all emphasize on press coverage, and keep on promising our clients, coverage in desirable print, electronic or online media? But how many of us include or will include other means to reach to the “publics” then media?
But its not only the PR agencies who need to be held accountable for this practice, I have seen many clients (almost every) who are so very media hungry, almost unquenchable, they can talk on every thing (very irritating), and if you think you can create awareness of make them understand, then all I have got to say is:
DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.
Wonderful topic, and make you mull over the “mode” of PR we are practicing.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers!
Bella
On Mar 27, 2007, Benito Castro said:
From Seville, Spain (Europe). Research, research, money, money… I think these are the measures that any PR action needs. To give to the client just a big Press Cliping is not enough.
The monitoring of results is easier at the digital mechanism, but very difficult at the newspaper scene.
Sorry for my English mistakes.
Benito Castro.
On Mar 27, 2007, bhavna said:
There are both qualitataive and quantitative factor of a Pr agency which can come under the measurement scanner.
Agreed there are few things which cannot be measured but alteast there can be comparitive bench marks for it.Knowing the quality and efficeny of your PR agency is right of every client.
I am a student pursing my master’s in media studies ,Pune University and my dissertataion topic is “Valuation of PR” so am kinda passionate about the topic
On Mar 27, 2007, hobbithob said:
I suppose awareness is the only way we can see growth in the industry, bella. Thanks for your comments again and for backing my thoughts.
Thanks benito for dropping by, I agree the measurement at newspaper level is somewhat more difficult tha digital, but i didn’t get the money part.
Hi bhavna, good to hear from someone who’s just starting and yet passionate about the profession.
On Mar 27, 2007, Sonia said:
Totally agree with your post. Guess at times, though we tend to follow a particular” strategy” to reach our audience, we at the end run behind the clips received. We have to not only change our mindset & approach, but also convey the same to the client.
On Mar 28, 2007, hobbithob said:
Hi Asha, I guess you are right and this will improve gradually as we go along and embrace new standard practices. Thanks for dropping by, Sonia.
On Mar 28, 2007, Benito Castro said:
I mean the more money a company have the more possibilities to do research in that sense (monitoring results).
On Mar 28, 2007, hobbithob said:
Hi Benito, I think maybe we should include measurements costs as part of our PR campaign budgets.
On Mar 28, 2007, Anonymous said:
I think its high time that we perculate the right meaning of PR to the clients in India too. Its not only the clips coverage value, but the value added to the client profile is what that really matters in long run..
thx
On Mar 28, 2007, Anny said:
Same old topic…and flooded with ’shoulds’.
Marketing – accountable for new business / Sales.
Human Resource – accountable for employees welfare/corporate behaviour.
Finance – accountable for managing assets/capital.
Functions,Results and Contribution is visible…Let’s see Public Relations as a Function – Its visible, Managing Communication…relations with the Media…and result is Coverage…WHERE IS CONTRIBUTION??? Now what to do with bunch of coverage? Let me tell you what we, here in India, do. We compare it with ADVERTISEMENT…so called Ad value Equivalence. Wow! Basics Wrong. How can you compare controlled medium with uncontrolled?
What Impact these snippets / exclusive stories have on clients’ business objective ..are they aligned with it? resulting in change of behaviour? influencing the opinion?
Can SoV / Ad Value Reports answer these questions? NO. SO NO CONTRIBUTION.
We should try find PR Contribution to the Organisations’ growth through Research and Measurement what is the Impact on business ……unfortunately, here in India there is no dedicated agency/consultancy, proven methodology..which can help clients measure their coverage. can benchmark where these companies stand in the media / public domain?
Bhawna – http://www.context-analytics.com, http://www.delahaye.com, http://www.carma.com. have a look at these websites and you will understand what PR Measurement is all about and where we stand today.
Njoy!
measured vizard.
On Mar 29, 2007, hobbithob said:
@ anny
On Mar 31, 2007, CJ Singh said:
Unfortunatly, even for the clients the media coverage appears to be the most tangible success of their endeavours, and in this process, lose out the focus of reaching out to their targetted audience. Integrated communication involves identifying targetted audience, and their communication needs, and evolving a strategy to reach out to them with the appropriate message, with the right media, at the right time. And the vehicle for communication, the medium, need not necessarily be the print media. And thus, the responsibility rests solely on the PR agency, to identify key issues and key messages that can reach the desired ‘publics’ most effectively and efficiently.
CJ Singh, CorePR
On Apr 1, 2007, hobbithob said:
Right said, CJ. And we should make it a point to make the client understand this more.
On Dec 21, 2009, Deepika said:
Totally agree with your point. I have just started having my first interface with the industry and feel amused to no ends to find out that what we pr practitioners do is that at the end of the month we start calculating advertising rates i.e. Aves. Its so pathetic system to measure our achievements.. I think we just fool around with our clients. First we don’t have any standardized method to calculate our achievements. Second we are amazed at our own achievements when we get figures in 9 digits.
To shed some light on this, Just the other day I was asked by my boss to calculate the aves. I got a 10 digit figure…celebrations galore…forgetting the fact, that what we give the clients is the advertising expenditure and not the qualitative pr. Supposedly if my client has only mention of his brand in a business magazine… I The business magazine has Rs. 2 lacs for its one page ad. I calculated it as 2lac multiplied by whatever d formula….
What I give the client is advertising rates and not the Pr value….. Wat say???