Last week, I was in the quaint and charming town of Puducherry. The opportunity was PRAXIS 2012 that brought together a firecracker of a group of public relations and corporate communications professionals. They meaningfully huddled over some meaty issues including evolution of PR 2.0 as defined by Deirdre Breakenridge; growing role of creativity, ethics and measurement to enhance value of public relations; and need for social commitment by agencies and businesses. Industry stalwarts were gungho. Robert Holdheim of Edelman India shared: “Take risks, push the boundary, optimize the power of public relations”. Madan Bahal of Adfactors India added, “If public relations professionals come together and put combined efforts, public relations will be billion dollar industry in 7-8 years”. Breakingridge asserted, “Raise the bar of public relations - that is the next challenge and opportunity”. Sharing more about a matter of special interest to me – role of measurement in public relations and Barcelona principles... On a journey that began with measurement professionals having sharp scissors as their tools, measurementati has come a long way. Today public relations measurement and communication research is a defined business discipline with solutions that are relevant and make an impact for businesses and organizations. The industry is evolving along certain governing principles called the Barcelona principles. The power of these seven principles is twosome. Firstly, to enable end users discern a quality and reliable measurement solution and secondly be the success indicators for the global measurement fraternity. At PRAXIS 2012, there was visible support to the first of the Barcelona principles: Goal setting and Measurement are fundamental aspects of any public relations programmes. Measurement has the power to offer insights into stakeholders’ reactions, offer leads on consumer preferences, and add to strong understanding of the environment that engulfs any business. Then why not incorporate measurement upfront in your public relations programme? Another strong impression was about another governing Barcelona principle i.e. measuring the effect on outcomes is preferred to measuring outputs. Today, qualitative counts (favorability generated, message alignment, perceptions created, influencers engaged with) can now be counted and therefore mere quantitative counts (number of clips, size of clips, hits and impressions) should no more be the only counts. Qualitative counts relate to outcomes – represent the shift in awareness and engagement related to brand equity, corporate reputation, employee engagement, and public policy investment decisions – the buzz mandates for public relations today. The strongest reaction however was to the Barcelona principle that AVEs (Ad value equivalents) are not the Value of Public Relations. Meenu Handa of Microsoft India rightly stated, “AVEs is like a bad habit that'll take time to kick off but then it is clearly unacceptable”. Worldwide, prominent communications organizations have revamped their awards programs to penalize entrants for using AVEs. AMEC believes that AVEs are misleading at best and valueless at worst as a measure of success. As Sunayna Malik of Text 100 India rounded off, the need to demonstrate the value of public relations activity against meaningful business outcome metrics makes adoption of measurement an imperative. At CARMA we espouse – use measurement as a business intelligence tool that brings forth insights and learning for public relations activity, thus optimizing public relations for businesses and organizations.

Barcelona Declaration of Measurement Principles discussed at PRAXIS 2012

Saturday, 30th November 2012, 12:30 PM IST

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By Neelima Khanna, Chief Executive, CARMA International India