Gainesville, FL – The Institute for Public Relations Measurement Commission has awarded 2012 Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award to a three-member team comprised of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Porter Novelli and PRIME Research. The case study, Changing Behavior through PR: Earned Media Boosts Campaign Performance during Medicare Open Enrollment, exemplified excellence in public relations research, measurement and evaluation.
“The winning entry provided a sound approach to measure the relative impact of paid and earned media tactics,” said Patricia Bayerlein, chairperson for the award. “It met the rigorous award standards by using research fundamentals to show that beneficiaries who reported exposure to earned media through public relations were 2.3 times more likely to adopt the campaign’s primary call to action than those who were not exposed.”
The Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award recognizes excellence in public relations research, measurement and evaluation. The program was created by the Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation, a unique body combining expertise in the field of measurement and pro bono service to the profession. Jack Felton, for whom the award is named, served as President and CEO of the Institute and was instrumental in founding the Commission. The Golden Ruler is the only awards program sanctioned and judged by leaders in public relations research, measurement and evaluation from corporations, nonprofits, PR agencies, academic and research organizations.
PRIME CEO Mark Weiner, speaking on behalf of CMS and Porter Novelli, said, “We are grateful to the Institute for recognizing our research and we are proud to reinforce the body of knowledge demonstrating PR’s ability to deliver a measureable return-on-investment. It is particularly gratifying to prove what we in the profession believe in our hearts to be true: PR works…And with an efficiency which other forms of marketing and communication find difficult to match.”
The winners were recognized at the 51st Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner on November 8th in New York’s historic Yale Club.
Frank Funderburk, Director, Division of Research in the Office of Communications at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services noted, “One of the key challenges that we face is conducting scientifically valid assessments of complex communication campaigns in real world settings where the target audiences are diverse and there is a lot of ambient noise in the environment. In the best of all possible worlds, we would like to establish a cause and effect relationship between our messages and beneficial behavior-change while learning what works; what does not; and how to improve. The statistical techniques used in this work have helped us achieve more confidence in our assessments. As a result, we can do a better job helping improve the ability of our beneficiaries to make the most of their benefits and improve the quality of their lives.”
“Too often PR measurement is relegated to its own arena with static measures of volume and tone” said Adam Burns, Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Research at Porter Novelli, the lead agency on this project. “The true power of this effort was the ability to illustrate how advanced media analysis, survey research and other performance measures can be integrated to augment an overall marketing and communications evaluation effort while gathering the feedback required to plan more efficient programming in the future.”
The case study is available for download on the Institute web site, please visit https://instituteforpr.org/research/awards/golden-ruler/
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Contact
Jenn Moyer
Institute for Public Relations
jmoyer@jou.ufl.edu
352-392-0280
Deborah Radman
Prime Research
radman@prime-research.com
917-841-9228
Catherine Sullivan
Porter Novelli
catherine.sullivan@porternovelli.com
212-601-8315
