If you’ve been following the measurement world within the PR industry over the last year or so, you’ve seen a fair amount of news coming out of first Barcelona in 2010, and then Lisbon this year. It may have caused you to wonder: How come the measurement folks meet in cool places on the Iberian Peninsula, and we get stuck with conferences in Detroit, Orlando and Philadelphia? Well, we welcome more people to the measurement tribe at any time, and in fact, the 2012 version of the European Measurement Summit will be in Paris.

However, maybe measurement or Paris is not your thing, but you want to at least understand the state of play. Here is what you need to know:

First, in Barcelona last year, around 225 measurement people from 30-plus countries agreed to the Barcelona Principles at a conference organized by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC). These seven Principles are the foundation of good measurement. PRSA played a big role in developing those Principles by bringing to the party much of the language and ideas from “The Business Case for Public Relations™.” In broad strokes, the Barcelona Principles say a few simple things:

• Set goals before you measure;
• Measure media with quantity and quality metrics, not AVEs;
• Understand how people and business results change as a result of PR;
• Social media is another channel and the same measurement ideas apply; and
• Make sure all measurement is transparent.

Continue reading " Measuring PR: Beyond the Barcelona Principles "

The recent announcement by Ogilvy PR that it is abandoning the use of Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) in favor of value metrics is only the latest in a movement across the global public relations industry to refine and improve measurement standards.

As PRSA recently wrote in response to a Wall Street Journal article exploring progress being made to measure the value of PR, “[The global public relations industry is] beginning to devise relevant, credible and valuable global measurement standards that will help us move well beyond AVEs, which were never a very good value indicator to begin with, and have held back reforming measurement standards for a number of years.”

That’s the good news. But public relations practitioners, anxious to pursue the brave new world of better, more relevant, more valuable metrics, may nevertheless be struggling with how to find a better way. Now that public relations has pulled up anchor and is sailing briskly away from the Island of Misfit Measurements, where is it going? When we move beyond AVEs, where are we moving to … and what are the alternatives?

Here are some thoughts on where to start if we’re trying to break the AVE habit:

Link measures to business objectives. A wise PR practitioner, whether agency or company-side, will also make sure when designing measurements that the communications objectives are tied to the organization’s objectives. We can often gain management support for new ways of measuring — and for moving away from AVEs — if we can reassure management that the purpose of the measurement process is to help achieve company goals.

Continue reading " Kicking the AVE Habit: Where We Go from Here "