March 28, 2003

When the Going Gets Tough
Four tips on doing PR and measurement
when your news is just not getting out.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Whether we like it not, the news hole is still shrinking, the media is obsessed with war and peace, the economy is wreaking havoc with ad budgets and publications are falling by the wayside. All of this adds up to a lot less room for those stories you’ve been so carefully cultivating.

Worse still, if you’ve been doing your homework by measuring results and cranking out lovely charts and graphs, the anemic results are all the more obvious. Your department looks as if it has been sitting in bed eating bonbons rather than actually slaving away ’til the wee hours.

When I was running a media analysis company, we knew instinctively that a major news event might impact our clients’ coverage. But we didn’t actually measure the phenomenon until Desert Storm, when every one of our media tracking accounts had a dismal quarter.

Now we’re seeing the same thing again. Local reporters, who normally might be expected to show up for an event or a press conference, are busy tracking down families with relatives in the Persian Gulf. Business writers are looking for the war angle, but most companies are too wary of being perceived as war profiteers to brag much about any success.

Don't Get Carried Away
The best response to this situation is to simply acknowledge reality and focus on your job and your business. Pay more attention to your work than to CNN, avoid reacting to breaking events. Turn off the TV war-a-thon and spend your time researching and planning relationship-building events for the future. Think long term—and remember that your competitors aren’t getting their news out either.

You Can Still Measure
When it comes to measurement, there are ways to account for the effects of external factors, four of which we've summarized below. Also, see Ask the Experts in this issue for what several of the best minds in the business think.

1. Put your results in context. You should always be looking at yourself versus your peers or close competitors. The shrinking news hole is probably affecting the entire industry. So if you measure your share of exposure, or share of ink, or share of positioning on a regular basis, those numbers should not change much.
   
   If, on the other hand, you’re in the defense industry or another organization directly affected by war or peace, chances are that you're getting more than the usual coverage. The pertinent question still applies: Are you getting your fair share compared to your peers?
   
   And when presenting your results, don’t hesitate to go for the simple. Put a little balloon over key dates when all coverage is affected—September 11th, Election Day, a major holiday. This use of visual cues will instantly and effectively spotlight the external factors impacting your results.
   
2. Measure what is relevant. Maybe in these troubled times "getting ink" isn’t nearly as important as having good relationships. If your sales are slumping, then trying to tie your efforts to sales is harder than ever.
   So don’t even go there.
   
   Measure the relationships. Or the trust your stakeholders have in what you are saying. Measure changes in perceptions over time, and by all means do it competitively. If you don’t have the context of your competition, you’ll have no idea if changes you find are the result of your efforts or the result of the general mood of the public.
   
3. Avoid gross generalizations to explain away the situation. Weak excuses like “We can’t get any press because the news hole is shrinking” won’t get your job done and will get you in trouble. The truth is that there is will be at least some other coverage. And if your competition gets it and you don't, you’ll get nowhere unless you face the situation head-on.
   
4. Set reasonable expectations. Despite what we just said about making generalizations, keep in mind that this is not the best of times for PR. The trick is to put your work in a useful measurement context. If you can, go back to 1991 and look at what happened to your press coverage or your sales or your brand preference scores then. If you don’t have records back to 1991, then try September of 2001. The important thing is to provide more data, be up front about the results and don’t look defensive. Good data on any part of what is going on with your coverage is worth showing; you’ll be in more control and everybody will understand the situation better.

This issue is on us!
In celebration of our first birthday, all articles in this issue are free of charge! Here is what is new this month:

Army Intelligence:
Army Public Affairs Gets It Right this Time

Four Tips on Measurement When Your News Is Just Not Getting Out

Five Crisis Management Firms

Seven Experts on Accounting for Extraordinary External Events in Your Ongoing Measurement Programs

Bach to Basics: The Symphony Searches for a New Audience

Report from the Miami IIPRRC conference

Moves and Shakeouts

Can Charlotte Beers’ Reputation be Saved?

...And Found Lacking

The Monthly Measurement Menace and Maven

The PR Weather Report

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