The measurement world took a big step forward, but we have a way to go before we can say we have truly professionalised this industry and that we have made sure no one thinks of PR or its measurement as a ‘nice to do’ rather than a mission-critical business activity.

 

AMEC, myself, and the delegates from around the world who participated in this summit genuinely believe that more accurate measurement of PR value tied to business results will help our clients plan and manage their campaigns better. At the same time, it will also support in-house communications professionals in their need to show the value and role of communications in driving profitable business growth in front of their top managers.

 

The Barcelona Principles are not the complete solution, but our hope is that they will end years or even decades of debate as to whether there should be global standards, and whether unacceptable metrics such as AVEs and multipliers should be used.

 

Let’s get specific. There are seven Barcelona Principles:

• Measurement and goal-setting are fundamental to any PR program.

• Media measurement requires quantity and quality measures; quantity measures on their own are useless.

• AVEs are not the value of PR.

• Social media can and should be measured.

• Measuring outcomes is preferable to measuring outputs.

• Business results can and should be measured wherever possible.

• Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

 

For each principle there is further language about how to apply the standard and why it is important. The specific language has been formally signed off following an industry-wide consultation process and can be found on www.amecorg.com. (As a side note, AMEC has emerged as a leader in the measurement world in the last several years. There could have been global principles years ago, but no other organization had the guts or took the time to actually do it. No wonder AMEC has been growing so fast.)

 

About AVEs. The Barcelona Principles denounce them as a value for public relations, and the indiscriminate use of multipliers (part of the supporting language) is also not legitimate. Why is this important? Because an AVE reflects the cost of advertising; this has no more to do with the value of public relations than the price of tin in China. However, if someone asks you what that space would have cost to buy as advertising, there are better alternatives than this common practice of taking retail advertising rates and multiplying by the ‘standard’ multiplier of 2.5.

 

What will replace AVEs are smart measures of quantity and quality in terms of reaching a target stakeholder group with the messages you wanted to get across. And, if someone asks you to give a comparative cost to advertising, there are a host of metrics that are based on negotiated rates, actual quality of the placement, and actual amount of coverage on the topic/client.Finally, forget about multipliers; unless you can prove they exist, they don’t.

 

Social media is part of the PR measurement world. The Barcelona Principles and the supporting language debunk the statement some make that social media can’t be measured, but is instead some exoteric form of communication. It’s kind of like when Gen-Y’ers tell you their generation is so different than any previous one. Forget it – we Boomers invented everything, including PR measurement. And like traditional media, you measure social media the same way – good quantity and quality metrics. It’s just another channel. A pretty cool one, but a channel nonetheless. The Principles also show a hierarchy of measurement. Outputs are OK. Outcomes are better. Business results are best. And the supporting language tells you how to make that progression. It doesn’t mean that outputs or outcomes are bad, but that we recognise that it’s possible to talk about PR in terms of business results such as sales, just like other marketing disciplines do. And, there are techniques that allow us to do that kind of measurement.

 

So, what’s next? My mom told me she was proud of me as she watched me lead that session in Barcelona (although she’s still clueless as to what I do for a living). But we have a way to go before we can claim victory. Here are some next steps:

Each participating organisation shall adopt the standards as its own in a form that is relevant to its members. When all Global Alliance and ICCO members vote them in, we are making progress.

 

There were 33 countries at the Barcelona Summit. So far, I’ve seen the Principles in English and Spanish. When they are in every language where PR is practiced, we can declare victory.

 

Each of the Barcelona Principles could get more specific with clear techniques and approaches. While every practitioner will want to keep his or her special “magic” of how he or she measures outputs, outcomes or business results, we could probably make the guidelines more clear.

 

There are many key award programs in PR around the world. The difference will be when entries to those programs are not considered because they violate one or more Principles. Already the Public Relations Society of America awards half of its total points for Silver Anvil entries to up-front research and back-end measurement and evaluation. Here is a clear challenge and call to action for the major UK PR awards schemes run by the Public Relations Consultants Association, the CIPR, and, of course, Communicate’s own Digital Impact Awards.

 

There are probably many further steps. Barcelona was a first step in a journey and gives a roadmap of where we will head as these principles are adopted, adapted and improved going forward.

 

So, to PR measurement professionals reading this, I challenge you – I made my mother proud, can you make yours proud, too?