Benchmarking In Their Blood

How Research and Plumbing
Helped Tom Nicholson
Double His Budget

In our travels we’ve run across a handful of people in corporate communications who embrace research and evaluation with the passion and enthusiasm of José Conseco approaching a ball club. They evaluate measurement vendors with the same intense scrutiny that Conseco uses to look at the opposing team’s statistics. They build measurement into all of their programs and don’t stop there, but continuously search for better measures, tied ever more closely to bottomline business results.

In this column we profile people whose passion for measurement has helped them to grow their budgets while advancing their careers and gaining influence in their organizations—and, after all, isn't that what most of us want?

Tom Nicholson, Director, Public Relations and Communications at Sears, is just such a manager. Anyone who has heard one of his speeches knows how he relentlessly pursues the hard measures of success: sales, market share and customer preference. His personal philosophy is that all that really matters is the impact he has on sales; stand-alone measurement of media or favorability or messages without tying in the bottom line benefits is a waste of time.

First measurement steps: Tom was a junior account executive at a mid-size agency when a client asked, “Why am I paying you?” That was followed by, "For every dollar I spend with you, what do you give me back?” Tom sidestepped the question and promised to get back to the client with a credible answer. He went back to his boss and said, “Okay, how do I prove that this stuff works?”

His boss referred him to a paper written by another member of the agency, but it turned out the paper merely advocated adding up the column inches and calculating ad equivalency. Tom knew that somehow this wasn’t the right way to do it, but it was all he had, so he dutifully took it back to the client. The client said it was a lot of BS, proving once again that the clients are often right.

Pipe dreams and Sears: Tom never did measure results for that client, but he continued to follow developments in research and evaluation, became a partner in a start-up integrated marketing communications agency and was recruited to a vice president’s spot at one of the largest public relations agencies in the country. He went to work for Sears in 1996 after writing a chapter about plumbing in a Better Homes and Gardens book on home repair. “I don’t think they hired me just for my plumbing skills, but it helped.”

His first research project for Sears involved the introduction of a new brand, Sears HomeCentral, in four pilot market cities. He conducted a simple test to measure the impact of advertising and public relations efforts. In two of the four cities, advertising was the only significant communication. In the other two markets, a publicity component was added. As measured by public awareness and calls to the newly introduced 800 number, the cities with PR had twice the results of those with advertising alone. That year his PR budget was doubled. Now that’s measurement in action.

How he measures now: Tom and Sears currently use Delahaye Medialink to measure media, and use other measures such as brand preference, intent to purchase and revenue increases to measure the business impact of public relations programs.

For instance, a recent project involved measuring the impact on sales as the result of a single article about Sears’ Fashion Footwear. Results showed that, in the area where the article appeared, sales were up 21%, while nationally sales declined by 2% and other comparable metropolitan areas were off by as much as 17%. Another project showed a dramatic increase in brand preference for Sears following the opening of the company’s new downtown Chicago store. That study also showed the bulk of the increase in brand preference was as a result of the public relations efforts surrounding the opening.

On his bedside table: He is currently reading Don Stacks’ Primer of Public Relations Research (Guilford Press, ISBN: 1572307269, 2002. Order it from amazon.com.), which he admits makes him feel like a novice when it comes to research. He was recently appointed to the IPR Commission on PR Research and Evaluation. You may contact him at tnich00@sears.com.