Management measures effects, PR delivers affects!

But in only a relatively few instances do the communicators know for sure the precise effect they are having on the company's fortunes!

Management expect to measure effects: executives either deliver something on time or they don't, a factory produces so many cars at a specific cost or somebody is held accountable, the sales team meets their sales objectives or else... These are functions that can be measured and therefore managed by management. They expect the same for communications, says Mike Leahy. But in only a relatively few instances do the communicators know for sure the precise effect they are having on the company's fortunes!

For example, when the PR campaign is the only communications tool used to draw crowds to an event and they turn up in their droves, the PR can take the credit. The result – the effect – is apparent to all. Take a bow PR! Similarly in advertising when a direct response advertiser places a coupon in an advert imploring readers to send a cheque in return for a promise to send product, they can measure precisely the return on the cost of the advert. It either pays its way or it doesn't. In this instance the result – the effect – can be directly related to the coupon in an advert in a medium (although, one might conjecture the different contributions of the offer vs the coupon vs the advert vs the medium, but that is another issue).

Sometimes we might use indirect measurement criteria. For instance, independent research to measure attitude shifts amongst various stakeholders between benchmark periods. The problem here is to isolate the relative contributions of all influences in the business mix. It is not easy.

When sales go up, staff appear to be content, the CEO feels good about their company's apparent popularity in the financial community and the stakeholders are happy PR might point to its own success. When sales go down, the factory is out on strike, the financial community is hounding the CEO and research suggests stakeholders are fuming, then PR might point at other functions to take the rap. PR might blame the economy, the factory manager, poor financial results, the CEO's wayward social graces. Whatever. And you might be justified. But it is cold comfort if you don't know how much PR affected the current situation? Would the situation be even more dire without any PR contribution? By how much? Was it worth the return on the money invested? These may be difficult, if not impossible, questions to answer with any degree of certainty. And certainly very difficult to measure beyond absolute yes and no answers. But an attempt should be made if PR is to be made a measurable and, therefore, rational business function in the company.

From effect to affect

Because, sadly, most categories of communications tools cannot be directly related to effect, so we end up measuring affect. This is not the same as effect. The dictionary on my desk says that an effect is the result, the consequence. An affect produces an effect on something. So you do an 'affect' to produce an 'effect.' Or in PR you hope it does.

What kind of affects does PR most commonly measure? Top of the list must be the various methods of evaluating coverage in media. For it may be assumed that a whole pile of favourably reproduced press releases has an effect on the attitudes of the target stakeholders. It may be so, and it may be reasonable to assume so, but it ain't necessarily so! We just make the connection – perhaps falsely – that an affect has an effect.

You are not alone. Usually in my chats with PR people I detect admiration of the seemingly scientific processes of media planning as practiced in advertising agencies and media independents. PR folk feel that agency planners must really know their craft when computers and databases, such as the All Media and Products Survey (AMPS), are used to produce statistics of reach and frequency and all kinds of other impressive stuff. And because it is so scientific and complex it must be rationale. Again, not necessarily - because although one can calculate the likely affect of a media plan - it doesn't mean that it will deliver an effect. Try getting a planner into a debate on the effect on the target of reducing the reach of a campaign in favour of frequency. All too often they fall about, unable to rationalize their own objectives, unable to see beyond the standard psuedo-scientific patter.

So be aware. Management expects effects, and expects you to be judged on them. You might be able to provide affects and the measurement of them. Don't confuse the two. And make sure management does not confuse the two.