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
â–¶ Continued Growth of Mobile Apps: Consumers are paying up for mobile applications, and that interest could translate into more PR branding efforts involving mobile apps. According to a new Gartner report, “Application Stores; The Revenue Opportunity Beyond the Hype,” consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores. Other findings include:
• Analysts said mobile application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010, eight out of 10 of which will be free to end users;
• Worldwide downloads in mobile application stores are expected to surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. Free downloads will account for 82% of all downloads in 2010, and will account for 87% of downloads in 2013; and,
• While games remain the No. 1 application, mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow in number of downloads.
Source: Gartner
â–¶ In Business We Trust: The 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer—the firm’s 10th annual international survey of informed publics’ attitudes toward institutions, industries, sources of information and spokespeople—finds that trust in business and government in the U.S. has improved significantly since last year, although it’s still fragile.
Nearly two thirds (59%) of U.S. respondents believe that business and financial institutions will return to “business as usual” once the recession is over. Other survey findings include:
• Trust in U.S. business to do what is right jumped 18 points since last year (increasing to 54%);
• In the U.S., trust in government jumped to 46%—a 16 point increase and one of the largest among countries surveyed;
• NGOs are the most trusted institutions in the U.S. (63%); and,
• Younger informed publics (ages 25-34) in the U.S. are more trusting of all institutions and in all sources of information about a company than their older counterparts (ages 35-64).
Source: Edelman
â–¶ Boomers and the Web: A study from CPH Research gauging baby boomer media consumption habits found that the most significant shift for this demographic was time spent on the Internet. Findings include:
• The majority of boomers surveyed have joined Facebook within the last six months.
• 62% of boomer respondents say they now spend more time online, versus 38% from a year ago;
• Αmong a wide variety of media services listed, boomers were least willing to give up the Internet;
• Boomers are becoming more aware that national and local news, magazines and, to some extent, television and movies, are available to them via the Internet.
Source: CPH Research