“Last week, we were pleased to announce CARMA\u2019s appointment as the exclusive Media Monitoring & Analysis partner for the PRCA (Public Relations and Communications Association) and ICCO (The International Communications Consultancy Organization).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following this announcement, we sat down with Francis Ingham, Director General of the PRCA, and Chief Executive of ICCO and Richard Bagnall, Chairman of global communications evaluation professional body AMEC & co-managing partner of CARMA International, to talk about all things measurement, and what the partnership will mean for the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We started by asking for a \u2018pulse check\u2019 on how the industry was engaging with PR measurement, media intelligence and evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FI: Over the course of my 13 years with the PRCA, I\u2019ve found that every year, the industry has become more strategic and less tactical, and more sophisticated in its use of data to provide insight. And that\u2019s the case for both the in-house and agency worlds. Of course, not everyone is at the same place, but everyone has begun that journey \u2013 and we\u2019re all going in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the areas we\u2019re seeing most progress in is in pitching. Agencies are able to use hard numbers and data-driven insights to inform campaign ideas, rather than gut-feel and gimmicks. And on the in-house side, comms directors are able to ask for evidence from their agencies to justify budgets and demonstrate their value at the top table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FI: The last year has been a real fight for survival, and hard on us all. But, the silver lining has been that PR and communications have become absolutely vital to businesses in all industries and of all sizes. In many cases, the normal touch points (like events, meetings etc) with clients and stakeholders have vanished \u2013 and so PR has taken centre stage. And crucially, companies have needed to communicate their own response to the pandemic \u2013 how they\u2019re evolving and adapting and serving their customers in these unprecedented times.
All this has led PR practitioners to put research at the heart of what they do, tracking campaigns, better measuring results and being cognizant of real goals and objectives at all times. And, given the importance of comms, clients and in-house teams are now prepared to pay for proper evaluation \u2013 it\u2019s not just a luxury anymore, it\u2019s now a necessity.
For me, this is a transformative period for our industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RB: Year on year, we are seeing more desire to understand and embrace meaningful measurement \u2013 which is incredibly promising \u2013 but some outliers remain. Of course, we know that different regions are going at different speeds, but even in the most mature markets some organisations remain reliant on activity-based performance measurement.
Covid-19 \u2013 and the related financial uncertainty \u2013 is a real catalyst for change though. We live more than ever in an era of accountability \u2013 and we all have to prove our value. Finance Directors are putting red lines through line items that activity based without tangible benefits. There is no room for cost centers that can\u2019t point to the value that they create, and if PR practitioners continue to measure themselves on tactics and activity only, they become incredibly vulnerable to that red line.
FI: Absolutely \u2013 and it\u2019s promising to see the progress being made for the majority. Of course, it differs from country to country, and continent to continent, but in the UK fewer than 10 per cent of our members now use AVEs to track the impact of campaigns, preferring more meaningful measurement approaches instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RB: This is an era of significant change. The media has been disrupted \u2013 with more outlets, publications and content platforms than ever, audiences are fragmented and polarised, and PR has been disrupted too. Comms professionals are under pressure to deliver integrated campaigns via Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned. And, into this disruption has appeared many companies which appear to offer cost-effective solutions \u2013 real time and automated platforms which basically just count \u2018stuff\u2019. They promise a lot, but just because they show pretty charts and data tables, doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re measuring what actually matters.
It\u2019s those big, automated numbers which are the real vanity metrics of today. The temptation is to see dashboards with lots of figures and think it\u2019s measurement. But of course this isn\u2019t enough. PR practitioners have to shape what they\u2019ve done against organizational objectives. Real success comes when they take those \u2018digital breadcrumbs\u2019 and link them to outtakes (what do people think as a result of what you do) and outcomes (what do people actually do as a result)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RB: It\u2019s a great match \u2013 PRCA is the world\u2019s largest PR and communications professional bodies and we\u2019re a global media intelligence and PR evaluation business. We share a mission which is to help the global communications industry to receive better media intelligence and more meaningful measurement, evaluation and insight. Working with Francis and his team has always been a pleasure through our long-standing relationship achieved at AMEC. Extending that relationship through my day job at CARMA is a very comfortable fit. Francis has always been a strong supporter of AMEC\u2019s best practice, educational resources and guidance too, it\u2019s a partnership that we really appreciate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FI: Yes \u2013 our relationship with AMEC is the most important partnership we have \u2013 bar none. It\u2019s integral to the future development of the PR industry: we have lots of competitors from other professional services muscling in on PR-spend, and it\u2019s proving value that will allow my members to stand out from the crowd. And, of course, this new global relationship with CARMA International will be integral to this too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next time, Francis and Richard talk to us about the skills gap \u2013 and how communications measurement can also help us attract and retain talent in the industry. Stay tuned for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Last week, we were pleased to announce CARMA\u2019s appointment as the exclusive Media Monitoring & Analysis partner for the PRCA (Public Relations and Communications Association) and ICCO (The International Communications Consultancy Organization). Following this announcement, we sat down with Francis Ingham, Director General of the PRCA, and Chief Executive of ICCO and Richard Bagnall, Chairman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":10374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[86],"creator":[],"class_list":["post-10373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-interviews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n