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| Vol.
5, No. 9, February 8, 2006|
To The Editor
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Measurement
Standards We in the PR world have been jabbering on about needing measurement standards for at least the last twenty years. Despite the best efforts of the the Canadian PR Society and others, we're no closer to achieving that goal. At a recent meeting of the IPR Measurement Commission we also discussed the issue of standards and whether the IPR should be setting them. We ended up agreeing to disagree on the subject. What does all this say about the business? The reason we don't have a standard measure is that there is no standard PR program. Program objectives vary so widely -- not just from organization to organization but within organizations and from quarter to quarter -- that an all-purpose yardstick of success is just not possible. As I argued a couple issues ago, transparency in research techniques would go a long way to toward allowing apples to apples comparisons. So what's this all really about? It's all about comparability. We want to be able to compare our program to someone else's. Not only do we want to know whether we're doing a better or a worse job than the competition, we also want to know whether we're doing a better or a worse job than the guys down the hall that handle direct mail or advertising or the website. But the practical reality is that PR programs have a wide variety of objectives. How can you compare the results of a program with one set of objectives to the results of a program with different objectives? So are we really talking about having a standard set of objectives? That is in essence what CPRS would have us do, measure everyone according to Media Rating Points. That's certainly a whole lot better than AVEs, but not necessarily everyone's desired goal. While I'm sure that Microsoft would love to tally up the MRPs for their recent Vista launch, they probably wouldn't be as thrilled with the results from the brouhaha over their attempting to buy good Wikipedia copy. And I'd love to ask Edelman how much benefit they received from all the MRPs generated from their fake Wal-Mart blog and the free laptop fiasco with Microsoft. So we're really not talking about "industry standards" as much as we're talking standard definitions. And to a large extent they already exist in the form of the IPR's measurement dictionary and its guidelines for measuring PR. Why can't we all pull together? I'll close here with the observation that our industry seems unable to be consistent about several important things, including a code of ethics and standard measurement definitions. Why is that? Perhaps the nature of our work is so inherently complex that, despite good intentions and strong efforts, progress on fundamental decisions has been difficult. Or maybe the measurement industry is composed of so many independent-minded entrepreneurs and free-spirited cowboys that we just can't easily cooperate. Perhaps some of each. Let me know what you think, and Keep on measuring,
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