New research from the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) in the UK shows that 84% of PR firms believed that evaluation is very important to the credibility of PR. In a recession, with pressure on both agency performance and budgets, the opportunity is there for PR firms and all programme owners to fight their corner to include an evaluation component in every client programme.
The cause for optimism centres around the fact that 60% of PR leaders said there had been no change since the economic downturn in the proportion of PR budgets spent on evaluation. In other words, there is a huge opportunity for agencies to prove client value with factual evaluation measures that cannot be challenged.
The PRCA is to be congratulated for its willingness to work with the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communications (AMEC) to champion evaluation. Along the way we have a couple of evaluation myths to break down:
- That evaluation is expensive;
- Clients are not sufficiently interested in evaluation to pay for it.
Needless to say there is compelling data and the proof available to answer both points, and that will be a core feature of the 1st European Summit on Measurement in Berlin from June 10-12. The Summit is being presented by AMEC and the Institute for Public Relations. Christoph Keese, Group Managing Director, Public Affairs from Axel Springer and Dr Roland Kuntze, Head of External Communications, O2 are among the confirmed major company speakers, joining Royal Dutch Shell, BBVA, Siemens and the UK Government’s Central Office of Information.
Barry Leggetter
Executive Director
AMEC
| PR Leaders Poll Results: Source – PRCA
1. On average what percentage of a PR budget is spent on evaluation? |
||
| Answer | Responses | Rate |
| 0% | 6 | 13.95% |
| 1 – 2% | 17 | 39.53% |
| 3 – 5% | 15 | 34.88% |
| 5 – 10% | 5 | 11.63% |
| 2. How important is evaluation to the credibility of PR? | ||
| Answer | Responses | Rate |
| Occasionally useful | 2 | 4.65% |
| Quite important | 5 | 11.63% |
| Very important | 36 | 83.72% |
| 3. Has the economic downturn had an impact on the proportion of PR budgets spent on evaluation? | ||
| Answer | Responses | Rate |
| Decreased significantly | 3 | 6.98% |
| Decreased slightly | 8 | 18.60% |
| Increased slightly | 6 | 13.95% |
| No change | 26 | 60.47% |
As a PR professional working in the Middle East, I totally agree that evaluation is important for the credibility of the PR industry. From my experience in this part of the world, the bulk of the the PR agencies aim at gaining more media exposure to their clients. I think evaluation fits in when we smartly link this media exposure with pre-set business outcomes to our clients.
Needless to say that organizations from both private and public sectors in the Gulf have recognized the power of public relations in strengthening brand equity and enhancing corporate reputation. They started to recognize that PR involves creating, maintaining and enhancing long term relationships with stakeholders. Clients in the region recognize that their stakeholders have become too demanding. These facts make it imperative to PR practitioners to start providing integrated solutions directly tailored to match their clients’ PR requirements and precisely evaluated according to pre set business outcomes to move PR from being “lovely to have” to being a crucial part of any business strategy!
Quite an eye-opening poll
credible poll