PRISA enters the measurement fray

A vital aspect to all projects includes money spend and information reach. In the communication arena, measuring a publicity programme is so important and yet many companies don't even bother to measure their communication programmes.

Simon Dabbs, managing director of Newsclip Media Monitoring, discussed the importance of evaluation, the process of measurement and the value of such analysis. Bridget von Holdt, APR of PRISA's Public Relations Consultants Chapter (PRCC) and director of InZalo Communications chaired the meeting and other participants included Sue Charlton, APR of SJC Consulting and Solomon Makgale, PRP of Airports Company South Africa.

It was argued that only editorial space should be evaluated and not advertorial, advertising space or free editorial space. Consultants need to be open and up-front about calculations and evaluations.

Von Holdt says: "Always be ethical with your client/senior executives regarding evaluations. Do not claim kudos if you have 'bought' the space."

The industry norm in evaluating editorial space acquired for clients by PRs, is currently based on 3-times the advertising value due to the credibility factor. And the issue of bad publicity was also discussed but not quite resolved. When reporting bad publicity to a client, do you evaluate by multiplying 3-times or 4-times? It was unanimously agreed, however, that equal measures should be placed across all media, i.e. radio, TV, press, magazines, web, Internet or by agreement with client/MD.

This is an apparent need when some of the top PR companies are known to go for 6-times and even 10-times forumlas for their clients.

No doubt the debate will continue at PRISA's national conference and annual general meeting, 29 - 31 May 2005 at the Sibaya Casino & Entertainment Kingdom in Umdloti near Durban.