Getting a handle on PR measurement is the profession's Sisyphean
battle, like rolling the proverbial boulder up a hill. New
measurement tools constantly are being introduced, but the ability
to align media coverage with a company's overall business
objectives continues to elude the profession. Now, PRtrak, a
subsidiary of Surveillance Data Inc. (SDI), has another measurement
tool: Media Prominence Index.
The index was inspired by measurement gurus Bruce Jeffries-Fox
(Jeffries-Fox Associates) and David Michaelson (David Michaelson
and Company LLC). The two challenged SDI to use its analytical
capabilities to create scoring based on such qualitative factors as
slant and prominence of the company in a news article and
market-driven quantitative factors, like media value, which is
"12.4% better than impressions and 25.6% better than article count
when correlating to business outcomes," says Angie Jeffries, VP of
PRtrak.
She adds, "This is huge, because we can now use what is valuable
in the old Ad-Value Equivalency (AVE) metric (objective marketplace
behavior) and refine it qualitatively, presenting the resulting
data simply as a numeric score without dollar signs or any direct
association to advertising. It should greatly help solve the AVE
wars that have waged for so long."
But to see if there is any proof in the pudding, we asked
Christopher Payne, manager of corporate communications at Thrifty
Rent-A-Car System Inc., to address the real-world benefits of using
the new metric:
"We commissioned a 'Share of Discussion' benchmark study through
PRtrak covering 24 months and nine competitors. Our industry is a
commodity, and Thrifty Car Rental is #7 in market share. Because we
place a high value on using PR to distinguish ourselves, we wanted
to know just how we stacked up.
"The resulting study confirmed we significantly out-performed
our normal market in the quality and quantity of media coverage. In
terms of PR performance, we are #3.This study helped us communicate
with top managers and our CEO in their language, and now they can't
wait to get our reports each quarter.
"In the past, we tried measuring with article counts and rough
ad values, but it was never precise enough to yield genuine
management information. The combination of competitive information,
and the qualitative and quantitative data that makes up the Media
Prominence Index, the base metric used in 'Share of Discussion,'
yielded clarification we couldn't see before."
Contact: Angie Jeffries, 713.956.1516