This is a guest post from K.C. Brown, General Manager of Cision Global Analysts.
Like most PR researchers, I was disappointed to see the use of Publicity Value as a measure of effectiveness in a recent NYTimes blog. Beyond being a contradiction of the spirit of the Barcelona Principles, which I helped shape and adopt, it undermines the sound, solid, effective research my group of analysts performs. It is these sorts of metrics and uses that keeps public relations on the light-hearted fringes of business.
My group at Cision Global Analysts not only avoids Publicity Value, Advertising Value and any of its variant cousins, we spend a considerable amount of time and energy educating and coaching our clients away from these counterproductive metrics. It is a tough battle, one I believe we will fight for years to come.
Cision’s media monitoring offerings do carry a publicity value, an estimated CPM (cost per thousand) that is auto generated for every news item in our system. I don’t like it, but it’s there. It’s there, frankly, because many of our monitoring clients demand it and would not buy from us if we did not offer it.
I will continue the struggle to educate, persuade and cajole away from the use of AVE/PV; a matter of fact, I am scheduled to speak at a PRSA event in Las Vegas at the end of this month on exactly that topic.
This example provides a good opening line for my very next media research presentation. As conflicting as it seems at this moment, I am confident this will help move the cause forward.
