Is PR measurable?

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Because there are no available statistics, we have little information on the size of the PR market in South Africa or the revenue it generates. What I can say with some certainty is that PR is not always seen as a strategic imperative within the broader corporate mix; that PR tends to occupy a lower corporate profile than other departments; that it receives less generous budgets than its marketing and advertising counterparts; and that other board members sometimes lack confidence in PR's ability to deliver.

I think the reason that PR is held in such low esteem is a lack of performance measurement. In an era where accountability is king, why should PR practitioners be treated any differently? Although not an exact science, there are methodologies which allow for fairly accurate measurement of whether PR strategies are successful or not. Because in line with the dictate in other departments, good PR should start with a clearly defined strategy.

Four pillars

Nissan's strategy is based on four pillars in our quest “to be amongst the top three most admired companies in the automobile industry in South Africa by 2010”. They are media, internal communications, sustainability (corporate social responsibility – CSR), and strategic relations (for example, government, customers, other businesses and financial institutions).

These four pillars are underpinned by an equal number of objectives: to position Nissan in the media as a top level customer care company; to position Nissan as a good corporate citizen in south Africa; to safeguard the Nissan brand and its product and services from media erosion and negative publicity; and to inculcate brand love amongst Nissan employees, thus contributing to the integration and motivation to achieve company targets.

In order to gauge its own performance, as well as to guide the direction of our PR strategy, Nissan has set itself a statistically calculated monthly media reputation score target. The graph shows that at the end of 2005, Nissan's reputation, and I'm sure other South African car manufacturers, were at an all-time low. This was attributed to the Competition Commission's finding of price fixing and anti-competitive in the South African automotive industry, which resulted in hefty fines.

Following the implementation of a concerted damage control campaign, aided by the launch of some good products, within the space of a year we managed to claw our way back from a 20% media reputation score to peak at around 72.5%, ahead of the target we had set ourselves.

Ten reputation drivers

In terms of media positioning, Nissan measures itself on 10 reputation drivers: financial management; product and services; stakeholder relations; organisational integrity; vision and leadership; corporate social responsibility; trust and affection; workplace environment; past reference; and marketing control.

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It's imperative to track how the company is faring in terms of the variables which drive its reputation. Important, obviously, is not only establishing the number of media mentions gained but also the type – favourable, unfavourable or neutral. From this is calculated a company's reputation grade – positive or negative – which can be compared against its competitors' average. For example in December 2007, Nissan had 207 media mentions – 37% of which were positive – and our reputation grade was 71% against an average grade of 58%.

A rating score, ranging from excellent to very poor, allows us to analyse how the company's product and corporate activities are performing. For example, last December we established which products were successful; that customers were unhappy with some of our dealerships; and that a Christmas CSR activity was well received by the public.

Benchmarks against competitors

Nissan benchmarks its performance against that of its main competitors on a quarterly basis to establish how comparable we are in terms of corporate-related activity (which includes BEE, CSR and innovation initiatives) and that of products and services. From a ‘comparative performance of all categories' perspective, Nissan remains consistently above the benchmark average. And while there are some areas which require improvement, we are satisfied that our overall performance is on track.

I like to think that at Nissan, PR is deemed as necessary – and as accountable – as production, whose responsibility is the quality and quantity of vehicles coming off the assembly line. Because you can have the best product in the world but unless your reputation is intact, the chances are you'll be less effective in the market place, where public perception is what really counts.

• This article is based on a presentation at a recent corporate communications conference, hosted by Marcus Evans, which aimed to provide insights into, among others: effective crisis communications in curbing negative publicity; effective use of the electronic and print media; the importance of corporate social responsibility in promoting a positive corporate image; developing a corporate communications strategy to effectively serve the public, employees, shareholders and stakeholder; and the effective management of public relations (PR) as a vital tool for corporate communications excellence