Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I wrote a piece a while back about the Media Relations Rating Points System which, now that I consider it, may have missed a few points. So I figured I’d better talk to those now.

Like virtually every other PR firm, and for many of our own clients, we compile relevant media clippings for our clients, package ‘em up nicely, and then fire them off, either daily or weekly or whenever they appear. Sometimes, we include a bit of top-line analysis along with those clippings — essentially, a preamble that highlights the consolidated good, bad and ugly of what went on during that specific coverage period. And, if it makes sense, we’ll counsel the client to either respond to a specific article, or we’ll exploit opportunities to drive additional coverage around a key issue or trend introduced by a specific journalist or publication.

And while this analytic capacity is inherent – to a small degree – within tools such as MRP, it is not comprehensive. And to that point, I say that I think we need to do better – to expand how we demonstrate value to our clients.

I believe a key determinant of PR’s value - and a vital criteria for how we are measured – is not only tied to the outputs (ie. the reach and impressions) and outcomes (ie. the business impacts) of what we do, but also to the “visibility” we provide into the channels, relationships and issues that impact our clients’ business.

I’m not talking about post-campaign surveys or polls. ’Visibility’, in the context that I’m using it, is about making the ‘invisible visible’, to capture meaningful intelligence that has the capacity to shape or re-shape what we do and enhance the value of our service to clients. 

And while visibility does not translates directly into ”results”… it provides something else that, I believe, is equally valuable. It makes us and our clients smarter. And it therefore makes our campaigns that much more successful. To quote a classic Rumsfeldianism: “…there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”   

Capturing coverage is only the first step, and the easiest. More importantly, we need to be able to view that coverage within the context of our clients’ competitors, their issues or their brands and analyze it against a variety of key factors - region, publication, journalist, tone, share of voice or other categories as defined by the client.

Filters such as these I would classify as the known unknowns. We know the data exists, but  the ability to capture and visualize that data has largely been incumbent upon junior consultants spending gruelling hours sifting through masses of clippings. Either that, or many of the tools that exist today provide only a very basic top-line view of the metrics that our clients really need (which are typically tied to specific outputs), or offer limited flexibility in terms of customizing the metrics to specific client needs.   

Where the real value lies is when we can go deeper and pull even richer insights from that information – to discover the unknown unknowns – and share them, virtually in real time – be they the trends that we didn’t even know existed, or the relationships between reporters, issues or regions that we might not otherwise have captured.

With respect to blogs, we need to build on such tools as Technorati’s “Authority Filter” to be able to rank blogs (and specific posts) by such metrics as frequency, tone, relevance, and visibility or prominence, and to be able to view specific relationships between bloggers themselves, the media they rely on, and the issues or brands that they talk about.

The tools exist. We are using a number of them already, to analyze social and influencer networks (talk to Ted Graham over on the Networks blog) or to identify relevant ’sweet spots’ in media coverage that can influence ongoing campaigns. And for our clients, it is ensuring that we continue to meet their expectations in terms of delivering the insight they need to do their own jobs better without breaking the bank. 

This week we’re pitching/strategizing a social media program for an international client. What’s interesting is that this program does not fall into the traditional product marketing communications sphere that we normally associate such programs with.  

That my colleagues in H&K Canada who are leading this process had the vision to see, and champion, the potential for social media is encouraging and a clear demonstration that we’re collectively starting to ‘get it’ – even those in a non-marketing capacity, as there are several components to this gig that will require initiating a dialog with government and other community advocates.

The program itself will look to target a variety of blogging demographics within a specific geographic area (sorry Niall, but I do believe listening to – and targeting - bloggers in a specific geographic market does have merit), drive awareness and dialog across a variety of issue-specific themes around culture and community (near and dear to the hearts of many, particularly when large sums of money are at stake), engage people to take specific actions, while also allowing us to create more ‘meat’ for the media based on the dialog this program is seeking to initiate. We’ll also be using a micro-site by which to channel our clients messages and amplify the dialog.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the client responds to our presentation, and will be keeping my fingers crossed.

Or is there?… but is it simply about finding the right combination of transparency, credibility, honesty and creativity all blended together with a dash of humility thrown in when it all looks as though it’s about to hit the fan?

Reading above, below, and between the lines at the Steve Rubel Mesh keynote on Tuesday, I admired the fact that, in his discussion about social media and blog outreach, Steve didn’t try to dish out the “BIG” insight, but rather willingly shared his common-sense views and experience based on being a first-hand witness to the good, bad and ugly of blog outreach.

Here’s a sampling of his thoughts and comments, supported by a few of my own:

1. Bloggers blog out of motivation – financial, personal or otherwise. Our job is to understand those motivations and tailor our approaches to feed into those motivations…

2. Blog outreach is not like media outreach. Where journalists tend to move onto the next story, the bloggers with whom you’ve developed trusted relationships will still be there, and should continue to be cultivated and engaged…

3. Blogs are but one piece of the communications pie. It may be getting an inordinate amount of attention right now, but it is still only one piece… the media is not going away. Face-to-face interaction is not going away. We must continue to exploit all channels to reach our target audiences…

4. As we look to measure blog outreach, we can’t just look at numerical data such as where a specific blog sits in Technorati’s blog rankings, or numbers of sites that link to that blog… We also need to explore the size and nature of the conversations that are started, and the examine the level of influence of a specific blogger given what they write about, how often, and how their networks respond to that content, and amplify it…

5. In many instances (certainly, from a political perspective), many bloggers are preaching to the already converted. In order to expand beyond that group, an organization must elevate their conversation. They must position their issue or product within the context of a ‘higher calling’.

6. Expect to make mistakes or to receive negative feedback (these are still early days yet)… However, so long as you remain transparent and considered in your responses, it should be possible to remain above the mud-slinging that may occur. Monitor constantly so as to be able to adjust your campaign when necessary, before a situation veers out of control.

BTW - my colleague, Niall Cook, in London recently posted an update on the blog outreach campaign he is running on behalf of LG. The more case studies like this that we can bring to bear, the better our chances of convincing clients of the merits of social media as a component of their outreach strategy. 

So… I had the pleasure of listening to Bill Murray, in the guise of Warren Kinsella, facilitate a dialog at Mesh on Monday on the impact of blogs on politics that included Mclean’s erudite Paul Wells, the National Post’s Andrew Coyne, and Brad Davis, unfortunate bearer of the unwieldy title of National Director of Policy and Internet Strategy of the Michael Ignatieff Leadership Campaign (or the NDPISMILC… kinda Da Vinci Code, no? NDP is Milk?)

But I digress…

From the perspective of this attendee, the key take-aways were as follows:

Politicians are only now realizing that the traditional morning clippings are but a thin-edge of the wedge in terms of keeping tabs on the conversations and discourse happening about themselves, their campaigns, and their issues, in the eyes of concerned Canadians. As we’ve seen with the 2004 CBS News scandal that brought down the once-omnipotent Dan Rather, and as digital copyright expert Michael Geist posited in his keynote earlier that morning, the blogosphere has the potential to elevate issues and information that might otherwise have not been raised through the traditional mainstream media vs Government-of-the-day rhubarbs and brannigans, to the peril of those that chose to ignore it (Sam Bulte you know who you are).

That said, the general consensus was let’s not get carried away… as bloggers appear to have done following the most recent changing of the federal guard here in Canada (a la Bulte), and as web evangelists did during the heyday of the infamous “howlin” Howard Dean campaign in 2004. According to insiders here, Bulte wasn’t likely to win her seat anyway, leaving us to question whether the impact of the furor over her fundraiser was really that significant.

But as Paul Wells put forth, he was himself amazed at the effectiveness of the Dean team to mobilize supporters and garner donations… a process that, win or lose, politicians continue to evaluate to this day. Davis highlighted the fact that the Ignatieff campaign is now regularly seeking feedback from Liberal-leaning bloggers and is, in fact, going out to meet with them during campaign trips cross-country to tap into the “groupthink” of this engaged and active group.

Likewise, where Wells believed the real impact was being felt was in fundraising, given the change to contribution rules that today permit maximum contributions of $1000 per individual Canadian, and in education. Canadians, in an afternoon, can learn more about the issues they are passionate about, than ever before.

With respect to the media, Coyne opined that the Internet and social media may provide Canadians with new opportunities to tune out the mainstream media and engage politicians in a more direct and unfiltered way. Said Coyne: “Media often get in the way during elections”, hindering rather than helping the educational process.

Where the conversation failed to go, however, despite several questions from the gallery, was on addressing the longer-term impact of the Internet and social media on civic engagement. As young people turn their backs on traditional institutions and lose faith in the current “political” process, how might the Internet play a role in their desire to be heard, and to play an active role in deciding the future of our country?

Likewise, the impact of the internet on grassroots advocacy, by NGO’s and other issue-based organizations, or by private sector corporations, was conspicuous (in this attendee’s eyes) by its absence. The use of the Web to mobilize and engage stakeholders to target their local MP’s and decision-makers via online petitions, issues-based micro-sites and other tools continues to gather steam, and is continuing to re-shape how constituents engage their government representatives on key issues.

Perhaps what interested me the most was Coyne’s reference to the “echochamber effect” on political discussion in the blogosphere, specifically that political bloggers rarely engage those outside the confines of their political affiliation and that they tend to stick within their own political spheres either “preaching to the converted or screeching to the opposition”. There is no apparent effort to engage opponents in a real or meaningful dialog.

All in all, an interesting discourse that left me thinking that the opportunities presented by social media to elevate politics and public affairs, are only now taking shape.

So…. MRP… (otherwise known as the Media Relations Rating Points System)

First off, rather than me fill you in about what MRP is about (in case you didn’t already know), you can find out more about it here, and you can read their informative and extremely balanced blog here.

But back to me… 

I guess I’m of two minds about it (and I’ve now sat through two presentations). Yes, on the one hand, it adds an element of science to a profession that desperately needs it. And yes, smart people that the MRP folks are, they don’t position it as something it’s not – meaning the ‘Holy Grail’ of PR measurement. On the other hand, I’m slightly nervous that MRP could, in the wrong hands, diminish the perceived and/or real ‘value’ that good PR can deliver to clients – whether client-side or agency.

Why do I say this? (Note: these opinions are my own and may not reflect the opinions of everyone at H&K)

Don Bartholomew at CGI touches on similar concerns in his initial analysis of MRP, as does Jim Gruning of the University of Maryland in his summary outlined in KD Paine’s blog here. My point being that MRP – for all its good intentions – could easily become a crutch for those in the PR profession who have neither the time, budget, nor analytical capacity to recognize MRP for what it is, what role it plays, and where it fits within our profession.

Without question, it fits. But lets not sugarcoat it unnecessarily. (I should make a point of crediting the MRP team for acknowledging specific shortfalls from the outset, and also their enthusiasm in responding to both well-intentioned and not-so-well-intentioned criticism following the launch of the tool.)

In the parlance of marketing communications, cost-per-contact is a giant leap forward over traditional ad equivalency metrics and a useful ‘cost-oriented’ standards based metric (to use Bartholomew’s definition) for comparing PR to, say, advertising in terms of being able to reach the largest number of consumers at the lowest possible cost.

But for many other areas of our business, cost-per-contact is virtually meaningless – and potentially damaging. For companies facing downsizing, facility closures, acquisitions, changes in leadership, proxy battles, or some combination of these and others, cost-per-contact plays no role in the measurement equation. Media is still a critical element in communicating through many of these issues. However, the real measurement is the ability to demonstrate how effective media relations helped neutralize detractors, mobilize allies, or educate stakeholders.

Many in the PR profession get this. Many others do not. As the MRP folks have themselves admitted, the primary features of the tool are its ability to accurately determine what it costs to reach a specific number of eyeballs, and to provide a system that gives a communications team an ability to provide qualitative analysis of that coverage. What it doesn’t do is provide any capacity to measure the real impact of that outreach and analysis – did it impact sales, did it change perception, did it drive an action or prevent an action, etc. 

And the MRP team know this. Nonetheless, this, in my view, is where the danger lies for our profession. That we can now provide more accurate information regarding specific activities is, without question, a good thing. However, we must constantly be striving to deliver on the bigger metrics and business outcomes. Let me be clear, this is less a criticism of the tool and more a call to action to our profession to avoid – at all costs – the desire to make this tool something that even its creators profess it isn’t.

Which leads us to the point-rating element. Personally, I think Bartholomew gets it wrong when he asks “Are all MRP’s the same?” Who cares? In the end, does it matter if I use an MRP rating or any other kind of rating, so long as whatever I use is agreed upon in advance between myself and the client depending on their specific objectives, and that it makes sense to their business.

And that is a vitally important consideration, and one that H&K has – for the most part – recognized. So long as there is clarity in terms of expectations set at the outset of any program between the client and his communications, and that appropriately agreed-upon measures are put in place to validate those expectations, what more do you need?

So yes, to some degree Andrew Laing of Cormex is right when he claims that “MRPs are simply a way to let the Canadian PR firms continue to grade their own homework.” That’s true, but only if the client isn’t involved in defining the parameters of each of the rating criteria. H&K’s experience has demonstrated that criteria and systems for measurement cannot be created in isolation from the client.

Equally, and where we often fall short, we need to be more precise in terms of setting tangible objectives – Let’s not just say that we’re going to “generate buzz” or “drive awareness”, let’s say that we’re going to “increase awareness by 10% within a specific target group over a specific period” and then let’s tell them that we’re going to do this, in part, by achieving X million impressions and an MRP score of 85% or higher.” (In addition to all the other things we’re going to do)

Quite simply, we don’t all have the same start or finish line. Each client measures PR differently because their situations and objectives are different. Those who choose to measure by cost-per-contact will love this system. It’s cost-effective, easy to use, and standards-based in terms of audited numbers. And if the point-rating criteria allows us to establish a more qualitative benchmark against which to measure quality of coverage, then the MRP is as good as any. But let us not forget that when we tell our client that we hit 1 million eyeballs at a cost of 0.02 per eyeball, and that we scored a MRP of 82%, and they ask what impact that had on their business… we can’t afford not to have those answers.