watson pr evaluation

8/4/2019 Watson PR Evaluation

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The evolution of evaluation: The

accelerating march towards the

measurement of PR effectiveness

Prof. Tom WatsonBournemouth University


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Agenda

The beginnings

From publicity to outcomes

Growth of PR services

Increasing debate and discussion from 1970s onwards

The influence of quality assurance

Scorecards, ROI and Barcelona


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Beginnings

Informal media monitoring in the US bypresidents from George Washingtononwards (Lamme & Miller 2010); also byrailroads, temperance societies andevangelists

News cuttings agencies start Early focus on publicity or placing of

newsworthy items (Kitchen 1997) Ivy L. Lee, founder of the first professional

PR firm, felt strongly that his work wasnondefinable and nonmeasurable (Hiebert1988)

Edward L Bernays believed PR should bepracticed as an applied social science like all sciences, it could be defined, thenthe results evaluated with precision(Hiebert 1988)


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Public Opinion

Influence of Walter Lippmann and Public Opinionin 1920s

Emphasis on public opinion research for benchmarking andplanning, (e.g. Arthur Page at AT&T) but not effectivenessmeasurement

Establishment of Public Opinion Quarterly (1937) Roosevelt Administration gave close attention to technique of

publicity dissemination (and) to the manner of its reception which

when accumulated led to a barometer of national opinion that

possesses great value (Batchelor 1938)

Toledo AssociatesNinety one per cent of more than 72,000clippings, representing newspaper circulations totalling more thanone and a half millions, were regarded as favourable to the citys

interests (Batchelor 1938)


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1940s: Change in role of PR

Change from holistic view of PR to product publicitystarts

PR was a management function to create relationshipsand earn public understanding and acceptance(Griswold & Griswold 1948)

The new view, as consumer PR developed, was:Business managers saw public relations as a cheapway of getting media coverage in comparison withadvertising. (LEtang 2004, writing about the 1960s)


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The UK

PR was mainly a post-WW2 phenomena; some press agenciesand publicists before 1939

Wartime expansion of information, news management andpropaganda in government led to post-war growth

Institute of Public Relations (IPR) launched in 1948, mainly fromgovernmental communicators

First conferences and books in 1949

Anti-intellectual: Tendency for too much intellectualisation, toomuch market research mumbo-jumbo Alan Hess, 1950president of IPR (cited in LEtang 2004)


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Common practices to 1950 (and beyond)

sheaves of press clippings (Harlow 1942)

Clip counts by volume, column inches and favourability

Cuttings books were big

Hall displays by yards


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The scholarship of evaluation

Early major scholarlyreferences to evaluationwere in first edition ofEffective Public

Relationsby Cutlip &Center in 1952

Their PII (Preparation,Implementation, Impact)model became the initial

model taught around theworld


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But its very difficult

The counselor works to better a firms reputation, but theimprovement can rarely be satisfactorily measured (Tedlow 1979,writing about 1930s and 1940s)

Few practitioners will claim they can provetheir efforts have paid offfor their clients or companies (Finn 1960)

Most public relations men, faced with the difficulty and cost ofevaluation, forget it and get on with the next job (Marston 1963) Measuring public relations effectiveness is only slightly easier than

measuring a gaseous body with a rubber band (Burns W. Roper,cited in Marston 1963)

Resultsis something of a dirty word in PR (Jefkins 1969)

The results of public relations activity are very difficult to measurequantitatively it may be uneconomic to devote too much time andtoo many resources (Black 1971)


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Rise of PR service industries

International networks start; university education spreads

Industry growth in US fosters services

PR Data, emerges from General Electric 1964, was first to usecomputer analysis

Promotes AVE Advertising Value Equivalence as a method ofdemonstrating PRs value (AVE first mentioned in late 1940s)


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1970s & 1980s: Discussion gets going

Measuring and Evaluating Public Relations Activities,published by the American Management Association in1968: seven articles on methods of measuring PR results

E.J. Robinson (1969) Public Relations and SurveyResearch

First conference in measuring public relations

effectiveness held at Uni. Of Maryland in 1977, hosted byJames Grunig and AT&T First scholarly journal specialMeasuring the

Effectiveness of Public Relations in Public RelationsReview(Winter 1977)

1980s:More articles in academic journals Broom,Dozier, Grunig, Newsom, Wright, Kirban, Lindenmann

Public Relations Reviewhas another special editionUsing Research to Plan and Evaluate Public Relations a seminal set of papers (1990)

Broom & Doziers Research methods in public relations(1990) published


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1990space increases

IPRRE (now IPR) publishes first research onestablishing objectives and assessing results(1993)

IPRA Gold Paper: Public Relations Evaluation:Professional Accountability(1994)

European Summit on evaluation in Frankfurt(1996)

Swedish PR Association: Return onCommunicationreport brings new focus to thecreation of value through communications

(1996) Clients and employers adopt ISO9000 processes

and seek to apply them to PR. Industry responseis Quality in Public Relations: Berth & Sjoberg(1997); PRCA follows with CMS


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Late 1990s

First Lindenmann paper on evaluation published by IPRRE(1997) 10,000 copies taken up; revised in 2003

OutputOut-takeOutcomeestablished as three stages ofevaluation

ICO and PRCA published How to get Real Value from Public

Relations. Targeted at clients. 8,000 copies sold (1997) More industry bodies (AMEC, IPR, PRCA, IPR-UK) publish

guides Major efforts on industry education, with focus on objective-

setting with measurable resultsPRE-fix IPR (US) forms Commission on Public Relations Measurement &

Evaluation (1999)


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Noughties

Influence of Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan & Norton1996) upon PR planning and evaluation; Zerfass leadsresearch on communication scorecards

New focus on Return on Investment (ROI) as PRindustry adopts business language

But research keeps finding that publicity measurement isthe norm and that AVE is the most popular measure

Barcelona Principles agreed in 2010 benchmark ofevaluation methods


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In conclusion

PR changed from an holistic organisational strategy to acommunication function

Separation of PR/publicity from organisational communications?

Crude metrics for PR/publicity

More robust and management-oriented measures fororganisations

Future

ROI and scorecards to be more important

More corporate communicators at C-Level

PR/publicity to remain craft-oriented

watson pr evaluation

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