â–¶ Answer to AVE: A new white paper issued by the Institute for Public Relations, “New Paradigm for Media Analysis: Weighted Media Cost” (by Angela Jeffrey, Bruce Jeffries-Fox and Brad L. Rawlins) presents research that demonstrates the increased clarity of correlation between media coverage and business outcomes when media cost data is factored in.
The authors define “weighted media cost” as “utilizing the cost of media to the broadcast time or print/Internet space occupied by a client as an objective market proxy number for comparative analysis against historical performance, against objectives, or against competitors.” Some of the findings include:
• Using audience impressions to gauge campaign effectiveness is sometimes more accurate than story counts when correlating to business outcomes;
• The cost of media space and time (weighted media cost) provides a useful evaluation of the news medium itself in which a story resides, similar to the way the cost of real estate impacts the overall value of a house; and,
• When comparing media coverage to business results, weighted media cost further refined by qualitative factors such as tonality is a better indicator of that relationship than other popular data points.
(Look for more on weighted media cost in the Feb. 15 issue of PR News. )
Source: Institute for Public Relations