Measurement Matters

PRSA 2009 off to a great start

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Richard Bagnall) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:22:00 +0000

I'm in San Diego over the weekend for the 2009 PRSA International Conference - the largest international PR gathering in the world. Many of the thought leaders of our industry our here to share their thoughts on the future of communications, to teach, to learn and of course to network.

The networking began in earnest last night with a tweetup named in honour of surely one of the world of PR's leading networked communicators Shonali Burke. Shonali used to run the PR for the ASPCA, the USA's equivalent of Britain's RSPCA where her leadership and forward thinking on the importance of measuring public relations won her many accolades.

Shonali now runs her own consultancy in Washington DC and counts among her clients the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. #shonalitweetup allowed me a great opportunity to chat to some fascinating people also attending the conference.

Well worth following on twitter and in attendance last night were:

@shonali - Shonali Burke
@leeodden - Lee Odden
@swoodruff - Steve Woodruff
@rockstarjen - Jennifer Wilbur
@kamichat - Kami Huyse
@vargasl - Lauren Vargas
@pryouready - Ashley Houghton
@dfriez - Debbie Friez
@lisasommer - Lisa Sommer
@natalie_joy - Natalie Joy

and many, many more. Log in to Twitter and seach for the #shonalitweetup to see who else was there.

The conference gets under way in earnest today with a keynote speech from Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post. The Huffington Post is firmly in the firing line of traditional media owners like Rupert Murdoch who consider that it is plagarising their premium content. Her comments and views on these issues and the future of our industry are bound to be interesting.

I'll be hoping to update via our blog, but for real time updates form the conference, follow it's hash tag on twitter #prsa09. If you would like to follow my time here with a focus on PR measurement and the future of PR generally, then please follow me too @richardbagnall for my personal updates.

Insight 1 (part 2) – The beginning – a very good place to start...

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Kristin Wadge) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:26:00 +0000

After Metrica's exciting news last week regarding our acquisition by Durrants, it’s back to business as usual on the blog. So, on with our introductory post from Metrica Insights...

With solid PR objectives sorted, the next thing to think about is how they will be measured. Do you need to do pre and post research? Do you need to feed into a marketing mix model that the advertisers are running? Do you need to measure your media output? A wise man once said, “not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” One of the biggest barriers to doing the right measurement is often cited as money. Gravitating towards the quick ROI win helps. Piggy back on the advertising department’s econometric model. Add an evaluation question to your newshook research.

A worrying 12% of respondents don’t measure the results of PR. It brings to mind a couple of business maxims that still ring true: what gets measured is what gets done; you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Clichéd, yes, but oh so true.

So how are people using measurement? Overall, the trend shows the growing importance of media evaluation. Which is great.

What looks worrying however is the decreased use of PR measurement for planning since we last asked in 2006. Only when measurement is used for tactical readjustments as well as strategic planning and refinement does it truly show its value.

For the first time we also asked if measurement is used to track and respond to social media. 68% said yes. Now, I don’t know about you but I can only imagine this increasing overtime. Tracking effectively is the first step. Chris Brogan, an internet sensation known for his sagely advice says, “grow bigger ears”. Listen first and listen hard (or get your media measurement agency to do it for you). Then you can decide what action to take.

PR measurement can wear many hats. It can be a benchmarking or campaign measurement tool, it can be used for audience targeting and media planning, it can justify additional PR budget and resources and it can be used for agency or staff performance. Ideally measurement should serve all these purposes, and more; the list’s by no means exhaustive. By increasing the uses you put your measurement to, you increase the value you get from it.

Before we say goodbye, here are some practical tips to take away right this minute:

Check your objectives match those of the organisation, are measurable and have timeframes
Ask around your organisation about existing marketing mix modelling / econometrics and market research. If it's happening, get involved.
Have a good think about how measurement is currently being used. Have you got an actionable tool that helps you tweak tactics, set strategies and communicate your success to the business? Or do you just flick through your lengthy report and contemplate its usefulness as a doorstop? Make your measurement work hard for its money.

Speaking of money, our next instalment is all about money. Everybody loves a £ / $ / € sign. We’ll be looking at how much people spend on measurement. Is there a right amount? How have other PRO’s budgets been affected this year? What’s the outlook for 2010? Until then…

Best of breed media monitoring, PR measurement and social media analysis unites

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Richard Bagnall) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:24:00 +0000

According to a survey in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Monday October 26th is the most unproductive day of the year as workers struggle with morale owing to the darker evenings that the clock change brings about.

Nothing could have been further from the truth for all of us at Metrica however as we announced to our clients, the press and the industry at large the exciting news that Durrants, the pre-eminent media monitoring agency, has purchased the share capital of our business.

Bringing the strength of Durrants' traditional press clipping and social media monitoring capabilities with Metrica's leadership in international and local market media evaluation and P R measurement consultancy services creates a compelling offering to the market.

For the first time, a client looking to have a one stop shop solution to their PR monitoring and PR measurement requirements can be confident that they are getting the market leading service in both arenas. There will be all the benefits of speed, convenience and cost-efficiency that are so vital when working within ever-tighter PR budgets.

In addition to traditional media monitoring services, Metrica's link up with Durrants will also bolster our access to online and social media content. Metrica's social media evaluation solution is already in use at a number of the world's leading organisations. Now we look forward to extending this service to even more clients.

There are many other exciting services, products and developments that we will be coming to the market to help with PR planning, research and evaluation over the coming months.

Despite all of these exciting changes some things will not change. Durrants and Metrica will continue to operate under their respective brands focussing on maintaining our respective positions of excellence. No staff at Metrica or Durrants are affected by the announcement, and all of our focus will be to continue to offer the excellent customer service for which we are renowned.

In the 15 years that I have worked at Metrica, there has never been a day that was more productive or filled me with more excitement at the future possibilities of what our business can offer to our clients. Exciting days are ahead...

Metrica Insights (Week 1, part 1) – The beginning... a very good place to start

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Kristin Wadge) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:03:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to the Metrica Insights series. The data fuelling these posts is a long running study of the UK PR industry’s measurement practices. Since 1998, Metrica has been interviewing a large group of PR professionals every two years* to gauge their thoughts and actions around all things measurement. Using the latest results as a springboard for thought and discussion, these posts will focus on the main issues facing PR practitioners in an increasingly ROI-centric world. This week we’re looking at the basics.

As someone once said, the beginning is a very good place to start. It sounds obvious but all too often we ignore the basics in the furore of everyday life.

The best PR begins with solid plans. Metrica Insights found that a worrying 23% of respondents have no formal plan driving their PR efforts. Nothing documenting what they are trying to achieve, what messages they need to deliver to what audiences to do it and how they are going to prove that it got done. Scary. Trouble is, planning takes time. And that’s one thing that is in short supply in the world of PR. So quick wins must be the way forward. No PR plan should take place without setting strong, relevant objectives. Real ones. Measurable ones. Getting “buzz” is not an objective. Generating X articles is not an objective. Changing your target audience’s opinions from A to Z by the end of 2010 is an objective. As is driving X number of your target audience to sign up online by 2010. See the difference? What’s more, PR successes need to talk to the success of the business. A positive 88% of respondents use business objectives to drive PR. This link is essential. When PR can prove the effect it’s had on what matters to the business, it really starts to show its power.

Fig. 1 How often do you set objectives?

When it comes to setting objectives, Metrica Insights found that a third of respondents set them annually and a third set them for every half year. A similar story to last time we asked in 2006. Interestingly, over the last six years there has been a steady increase in the proportion of organisations defining business objectives to be achieved for every PR programme / project. In 2008/9 almost a third (28%) of PROs set objectives for every programme / project. Setting out with a clear destination in mind and a way to prove you got there makes sense in this age of accountability.

Respondents who never define objectives has dropped to just 6%. Hooray. It’s still 6% too many but we’re moving in the right direction.

We’re going to continue on this theme early next week so tune in then for the second instalment. This post will conclude our journey through the basics and closes with our top three practical tips to take away (as will all the posts in the series). Until then…

*Data based on 100 qualitative in-depth interviews with UK PR practitioners

Metrica Insights - a study into UK PR measurement trends

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Kristin Wadge) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:14:00 +0000

Every two years, Metrica runs a survey of in-house PR practitioners. The in-depth interviews give tremendous insight into the UK PR industry’s measurement, planning and research activity. This research, stretching back to 1998, uniquely documents the changing attitudes towards PR measurement over the past ten years. As the social transformation of media impacts on the way we all work, Metrica Insights 2009 shows the reality of measurement for PR practitioners today.

Every fortnight until the end of 2009, we’ll be releasing an insight from this study via MeasurementMatters. We’re hoping these snippets will allow you to benchmark your activity against a representative sample of peers, learn from the intelligence Metrica wraps around the results and plan for the ROI-focused, social wonderland that will be 2010. Exciting times.

The first post covers the basics of planning, research and evaluation and will be posted next week. Make sure you subscribe to take advantage of all the updates.

Off to the IPR Measurement Summit 2009

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Richard Bagnall) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Incredibly a year has passed since I attended the last IPR Summit on PR Measurement. This week will see me heading off to New Hampshire once again to meet many of my industry peers to discuss best practice in public relations measurement and evaluation. New Hampshire at this time of year is incredibly beautiful as shown in this great photo by taken by Katie Paine.

2009 has yet another jam packed programme mixing work shops, case studies, panel discussions, the latest from academia / thought leaders, the Jack Fenton Golden Ruler Awards and of course a significant focus on social media measurement. The full Summit programme is available here.

I have been asked to represent Metrica's views in a panel discussion entitled "An In-Depth Look at the Strengths and Weaknesses of Advertising Value Equivalency". On the panel, I will be joined by Dr David Rockland, Partner and MD of Ketchum, Dr David Michaelson, President of Echo Research and Angela Jeffrey, Vice President Editorial Research at VMS. Our panel will be moderated by Dr Donald K. Wright, Professor of Public Relations from Boston University.

David will be giving a short presentation on the subject in advance which I am sure will be as good as his excellent talk on the subject back at AMEC's First European Summit on Measuring Public Relations back in June this year.

I know what I shall be saying about Metrica's views on AVE's of course already but can't spoil the event by saying too much in advance. But what about you? What would you say about AVE's if you were in my shoes? I'd love to hear your thoughts and would welcome all of your views in the comments section below.

Finally, it's not too late to book your ticket and join in the debate on the metrics most appropriate to media evaluation. Will we see you there?

Social networks & search; ever closer bedfellows

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Richard Bagnall) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:19:00 +0000

There have been a number of interesting developments recently as search and social media continue to work closer with each other.

Microsoft's Bing, trying to steal a march on Google, recently launched a beta of BingTweets - a search engine that blends real time twitter results with Bing's web search too. It's a very useful site.

A search for example for PR Measurement will pull up Metrica in Bing's web search, but wont necessarily mention us in the Twitter feed. Search for PR measurement jobs however and Metrica appears both in Bing's web page results, as well as the twitter feed showing the chatter around our search for a great sales exec (full job spec in case you're interested: Metrica sales exec role).

Bing's approach blends a decent web search with the immediacy of a twitter search. Bringing the information together definitely beats having to do a manual search on both a web search engine and twitter.

The benefits of blending search and social networks are not lost on the major search engines. Traditional search is already starting to feel like yesterday's industry. More than ever people are looking to find relevant and up to date information from conversations that are happening now.

As a result, all of the major search engines are looking for ways to encourage and engage on-line communities. Yahoo has recently redesigned it's homepage to embrace web 2.0 style personalised content. (Incidentally in another sign that the old world is changing, it has also recently become the last of the major players to announce that it will no longer be supporting the meta tag 'keyword' in its search results).

Google's not resting on its laurels either. As Jeremiah Owyang explains, rather than trying to create their own social network portal (like Facebook or Myspace), Google is looking to envelope the social web with Google profiles, Gmail, Sidewiki (already covered on Metrica's Measurement Matters) and Wave. Instead of having their own URL, Google will be enabling every online activity to be a social one run through their own platform. That said, early reviews of Wave from it's intial beta users are that it's 'impressive but useless."

Back to Bingtweets, and some people have noticed that in the last 24 hours it has started to behave a little erratically from a stability point of view. This has coincided with Twitter also having issues which has suggested that behind the scenes, Bing and Twitter are about to sign a major search deal. This would make sense to Bing as it looks to make its search more relevant and 'real-time' and would make sense for Twitter too as it continues to look for ways to monetise without irritating its army of users with adverts. Watch this space.

Either way, it's just one more wake up call to the PR industry that it's time to embrace new challenges and techniques as social media continues to change the way public relations is planned, implemented and measured.

Love or hate this social media marketing approach?

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Richard Bagnall) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:56:00 +0000

In the UK everyone has an opinion on Marmite. (A yeast based "nutritious savoury spread that contains B vitamins, enjoyable in a sandwich, on toast bread or even as a cooking ingredient" for those of you who may not have heard of it). You either love it or hate it. The marketeers at Marmite know this all too well and for a number of years now have run quirky campaigns playing up to this.

Marmite's homepage even directs visitors to one of two main areas - for those who think it's 'perfect' and for those who think it's 'horrid'.

Now it seems Kraft, the makers of a similar Australian product, Vegemite, are discovering for themselves the polarisation that these types of spreads seem to generate. Earlier in the summer, Kraft held an online competition to name their new 'cheesy' (flavour not style!) spread. The result was iSnack 2.0

I'm not sure how this name came to be the one selected from 48,000 entries, but it wouldn't need a focus group to realise that this is a name that was likely to cause a disconnect with consumers. After all, it's a spread, not a web application! Apparently, Kraft felt that "the winning entry was chosen for its personal call to action..." Despite more than 3 million jars of the new product being sold in quick time, the public backlash was so vociferous - largely through social media forums - that Kraft has announced it will be changing the name.

This time they have embraced Web 2.0 techniques and, harnessing social media and viral communication, have run an online poll with a small selection of more suitable names for the public to vote on. The results are going to be announced tomorrow (Wednesday 7th October). Will the public love it or hate it?

It strikes me that either way its launch has been a success. It's created an awful lot of publicity for the new product and what must be Vegemite's ultimate measure of success and ROI - sales - don't seem to be doing too badly as a result. As Tom O'Donnell from the Australian Institute of Sales Marketing and Management says: "they couldn't have bought the advertising space which the interest in this name has generated''.

As for me? Well I still prefer Marmite.

Evening Standard to go Free – what next for Murdoch?

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (PaulH) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Russian billionnaire Alexander Lebedev has announced that the London Evening standard will be given away for free from 12^th October.

Lebedev bought a majority stake in the Standard from Associated Newspapers earlier in the year. With News International’s free London Paper closing down last month, there will be speculation about the fate of the London Lite. Despite being owned by Associated and getting much of its content from the same source as the Standard, the Lite competes directly with its ‘sister’ title and has demonstrably taken readers away from the paid for daily.

Lebedev maintains that quality standards will be maintained: “The Standard has been producing exceptional journalism since 1827 and that is not going to change under my ownership”. He is predicting the circulation will more than double from 250,000 to 600,000 copies a day – higher than the 450,000 circulation the Standard enjoyed before it had to compete with free rivals back at the turn of the millennium.

Lebedev is also predicting other newspapers will go free: “The London Evening Standard is the first leading quality newspaper to go free and I am sure others will follow”. But doesn’t this move to free media fly in the face of Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge not only for newspapers but for online content too?

Murdoch’s argument is that people will pay for quality content: “Just make our content better and differentiate it. If we are successful, we will be followed by all the media.” This reasoning works for a niche business site such as the Wall Street Journal which has enjoyed an increase in subscriptions by offering unique content to those that value it but will this be the same of commodity news and celebrity gossip? Critic of the traditional media owners approach Jeff Jarvis argues that commodity news inevitably ends up being free - “if the news is that important, it will find me”.

A recent Harris Interactive poll backs this view up. Faced with their favourite news site starting to charge, three in four people would find another free site at an alternative. In the UK there is a long term ‘free’ competitor in the form of the BBC. Many media owners are concerned that this forces them to offer free content in response. However as media commentator Matthew Horsman has pointed out, it’s difficult to point to the BBC since exactly the same problem is happening in the States where commercial sites have deliberately chosen to become free in order to compete with one another.

The strange thing about this is that many of us are willing to pay for content for TV – indeed Ofcom figures show that nearly half of all television households in the UK are now choosing to pay for additional TV channels. We pay for TV primarily because we like the content but we also we like the convenience of paying for something as a bundled subscription, and then consuming what you want, when you want, without worrying about the cost.

With the relaunch and apparent success of SkyPlayer (which allows sky TV content to be viewed over the internet) maybe the solution for the Murdochs is to bundle subscriptions to their key newspaper brands in with the Sky subscripton. At least it would keep everything in the family.

Internet takes over the world!

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Kristin Wadge) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:18:00 +0000

We've all felt the surging influence of the internet on our day to day lives. Ten years ago we started consuming media through it, five years ago we began engaging with it, two years ago our bosses started taking notice and today the IAB has announced that online advertising has overtaken TV for the first time ever. Wow.

Unsurprisingly, TV marketing body Thinkbox immediately questioned the IAB's methodology. Linsdey Clay, Thinkbox's Marketing Director stated that it is, "meaningless to sweep all the money spent on every aspect on online into one big fiigure and celebrate it." Maybe so. But whichever horse is nudging ahead in the race (and I know which one I'm putting my money on), it's clear that online and digital is here to stay.

It's also crystal clear we need to truly embrace (and understand) online and digital; we knew that already. The main point I continue to take away from all the online furore is that the basics of good marketing still apply. The consumer is still the consumer and the product is still the product. PR still needs to get the right messages to the right people.

In this video response to the ASA's annoucement, Nick Fox from leading advertising agency DDB talks about what makes a good ad for TV and a good ad on the net. Surprise, surprise, it's essentally the same thing. "You need a deep undertsanding of who you are talking to and what turns them on... and a really deep understanding of the product. Ultimately you're going for sales." Wise words indeed.

As marketing disciplines chase the gold rush that is digital budgets, PR is in a great position to compete. Understanding of the online medium is key, as is ensuring solid strategic basics. And I may be biased, but RoI and proving the outcome of PR surely has to be the golden ticket to success...

Does The Sun lead or follow?

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Tim) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Last night The Sun announced that they will back the Conservatives at the next general election, 12 years after backing New Labour, with today’s front page announcing that: “Labour’s lost it.” In 1992 the newspaper’s election day headline “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?, leading to the later claim “It was The Sun wot won it”. Can we judge the shift to Cameron with the same weight?

I was part of a panel discussing this last night on BBC Radio 5Live’s Richard Bacon show, with commentator Shane Greer and a host of senior media and political heavyweights calling in. It was no surprise that Labour politicians such as Ed Milliband thought the decision lacked the significance of the past, while it was welcomed by Conservative Chairman Eric Pickles.

Tony Blair’s former spokesman Alistair Campbell played down the significance, writing today that “Sun switches ain’t what they used to be.” He suggested: “It is a big media story, and the media love nothing more than a big media story,” adding that with a fragmented media very different from 1997, consumers are also savvier. “While the public may know the politicians spin them a line from time to time, they sure as hell know the papers do too.”

Roy Greenslade also took part in last night’s debate, confirming today his view that The Sun is “placing itself as a central actor in a political drama. It is saying that what it thinks really counts. But there's precious little proof of that any longer.” The Sun’s circulation today is 35% lower today than it’s mid 1990s peak. Greenslade, like Steve Hewlett, thought the newspaper a follower of public opinion, not a leader.

The Sun may not be as significant as it once was. Nevertheless, last night’s announcement hijacked the headlines and to that extent was successful for the paper’s new editor Dominic Mohan. Otherwise it wouldn’t have led last night’s debate on Five Live, or been talked about across the media today. Can a mainstream media title, like The Sun, be as influential as it once was? Does the fragmentation of readership habits mean that no single title will ever again be able to claim an election as its own?

Google Sidewiki: helpful friend, Pandora's box or red herring?

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Tim) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:56:00 +0000

Google this week unveiled the Sidewiki: "which allows you to contribute helpful information next to any webpage". This has the potential to make the entire web 'social.' Every site will become a forum, with users able to leave comments and feedback, viewable to all visitors of that site - who have the Google toolbar downloaded.

The magnitude of Sidewiki could be huge. It could force every company and body that has a web presence to being understanding and engaging with their own online community. All holders of website content will be required to ensure that their users have a positive impression of them. All web content holders will become Sidewiki 'managers' trying to ensure that more good than bad appears on the tool.

Jason Falls suggests that: “this software feature is the online equivalent of people suddenly being allowed to post graffiti, flyers and posters all over the front of your building.” The tool is easily open to abuse. Your website's Sidewiki could become littered with promotions for your competitors, derogatory material or spam. Every widely used web technology has been hijacked by spammers.

The UK's left leaning Guardian cheekily suggested on the rival (right leaning) Daily Mail's website's Sidewiki that users would be better off finding "proper" news at their own site. The Sidewiki seems like an open goal to abusers, though this is only one argument that suggests it may not become the revolutionary tool Google hope it to be. Google make money by understand the world's web use and to sell targeted advertising from their intelligence. At The Guardian, Charles Arthur suggests that the Sidewiki is another attempt by Google to own more of the web's conversations, enabling it to sell more advertising from these. "If you know what everyone's saying, then you can sell them adverts, you can mine information and sell that to advertisers, and you basically know everything that's happening online."

The Sidewiki could also fail to take off simply because there are not enough users of the Google toolbar. Perhaps I would prefer to see my websites in full screen and not have a feed of comments taking up a quarter of my screen?

A Google tool is unlikely to fall disappear without trace, but where the Sidewiki ends up settling remains to be seen. Could it force the whole web to become social?

Survey finds that only a fraction of web users would pay for online news content

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Jack Deacon) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:32:00 +0000

A survey released earlier this week further called into question the case for pay-for access to news sites. The survey, commissioned by Harris Interactive, found that just 5% of those polled would pay to continue reading their favourite news site. It should be noted that the survey specifically referred to the site already being to the user’s preference – one would imagine that this figure would drop significantly where itinerant users are concerned.

As Mike Masnick over at techdirt notes, 5% is actually, relatively speaking, quite high - there are plenty of organisations vying for market share amongst a worldwide audience below 83 million. It should also be noted that this figure falls nicely in line with Chris Anderson’s calculation that just 5% of customers would need to subscribe to a service to make a typical freemium model worthwhile. The figure is, however, significantly lower than the (always somewhat ambitious) 10-15% of users lawyer-cum-saviour-of-journalism Steven Brill recently discussed as feasible.

Another interesting point to note is that the vast majority (74%) of those polled would “find another free site”, which is fine in the current climate in which users can cherry-pick from a wealth of exceptional free sites, but what of a future where all reliable/readable news sources operate on a subscription model? An unlikely proposition I know but - unless online publishers can firm up an often shaky relationship with advertising revenue streams - maybe a necessary one, as Harris’ ironically named Andrew Freeman notes; “As long as free alternatives exist, consumers will turn to them for their daily news information”.

Other findings of the survey include the fact that, unsurprisingly, ABC1s are more likely to pay to continue reading than C2DEs and, interestingly, that those aged between 16 and 24 are 7-12% more likely than any other age group to sign up to paid-for content. Ironically enough, however, Metrica’s UK Pulse data shows that young adults favour the BBC website as their source for news (63% prefer the site, against 51% of the UK audience overall) which, survey findings aside, found an excellent source of funding some time ago.

Online news websites most read by young adults by highest variation from UK national average

Does growing confidence in the economy mean online content can remain free?

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Charlotte) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:43:00 +0000

According to a new survey, the UK recession has ended and business optimism has risen to its highest level in two years. The quarterly Business Confidence Monitor report (BCM) conducted by The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) predicts the economy will grow 0.5% this quarter. This breaks five quarters of declining output, with 41% of the respondents stating they are more confident about their prospects than last year.

IT is said to be the most confident sector, followed by banking, finance, isurance and property. In fact, considering the turmoil of the last two years, the institue highlights that the banking sector has shown a “remarkable upturn”.

The BCM survey was presented following from last week’s news that almost 30% of the technology, media and telecoms companies surveyed by BDO Stoy Hayward said they were "slightly or more confident" about the media sector's economic prospects facing the sector over the next quarter.

Regional newspapers have particularly suffered in the recession. However, back in July, Trinity Mirror, the owner of the Daily Mirror and more than 140 regional titles, showed signs of such confidence, giving a cautiosly optimistic forecast for advertising revenues for the second half of 2009. News that the rate of the company’s advertising revenue decline was slowing down after a “torrid 12 months” resulted in a 16% surge of Trinity Media’s share price.

While ITV is still struggling with falling television advertising revenues, Screen Digest forecasts that ITV.com could make as much as £34 million from advertising in 2009, more than tripling its revenue. Dan Cryan, analyst at Screen Digest, believes “the revenue increase comes from a mixture of increasingly large audience levels and ITV becoming a world leader in monetising its content”.

If the economy improves, will content providers still need to charge for online content? The debate on free content led by Rupert Murdoch, evidenced by the closure of TheLondonPaper may well change again if revenues recover and advertising rates pick up. A confident media sector benefiting from improving revenues may not need to radically alter the landscape as Murdoch suggests. His proposition, weakened by the existence of free news providers like BBC, may be further weakened if a growing economy persuades other media outlets to stick to their current business model, where content is free.

TheLondonPaper to close

blog.nospam@nospam.metrica.net (Ria) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:03:00 +0000

The recession claimed another victim today when News International said that it planned to close its afternoon freesheet, TheLondonPaper. The title was launched nearly three years ago in a blaze of publicity as the freesheet went head-to-head with London Lite. News International have cited the downturn in advertising and the resulting huge losses as being the key cause of the paper’s demise.

This follows news earlier in the month that Rupert Murdoch, the owner of News International, plans to introduce charges for access to all his news websites, including The Times, The Sun and the News of the World, by next summer. Once again, the motivation behind this move is to compensate for the losses that have come about as the advertising industry has been stung by the recession. If the charges are introduced and prove to be successful, is it just a matter of time before other online news sites follow suit?

FT editor Lionel Barber has predicted that “almost all” news organisations will charge for online content within a year. However, many seem to disagree. Roy Greenslade spoke to Channel 4 News and argued that sites like FT.com can charge for online content because it is targeting a niche audience. Sites dealing with general news would struggle to sustain charges when websites like the BBC are available for free.

From the perspectives of the PR and PR measurement industries, the key learning to take away from the news of TheLondonPaper’s closing, and Mr Murdoch’s plan to charge for newspaper sites, is that the advertising industry is no longer the cash cow it once was. Further to this, the recession has had a big impact not just on advertising rates, but circulation figures too – recent ABC figures have shown that consumer magazines in particular have been badly hit.

At Metrica, we have never been fond of Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) and Opportunities To See (OTS) as methods of measuring PR success, and the current economic climate further hammers home the point that these measures are flawed. AVE and OTS figures are falling across the board, so even if a 2009 campaign generates more articles in higher profile publications, results could still pale in comparison with 2008 and 2007 data when rates were higher.

So, what are the alternatives? There are a range of useful methods for demonstrating Return On Investment (ROI), and these have been discussed recently on Measurement Matters. In a six-part series of blogs discussing methods for demonstrating PR ROI, there is plenty of food for thought.