Barcelona Declaration of Measurement Principles

Barcelona Declaration of Measurement Principles

The more defined measurement of Public Relation value linked with the business results will help generate better campaigns and plan ahead more accurately. For this aim 200 delegates from 33 countries have gathered in the Association of Measurement and Evaluation of Communication's second summit on measurement. All the delegates from worldwide countries have finally agreed on the global measurement standards for public relations. In the summit an international goal was achieved for the Public Relations industry and it was a landmark for this sector.

David Rockland, head of research for Ketchum, led the session. Mr. Rockland has a high vision and hope for the success of the declaration as he says that with the industry's commitment, is a powerful moment in the history of public relations, because public relations had been undervalued before this due to which it was still in immature state,. The summit will increase the credibility of Public relations to significant extent (Barbe, 1996).

The common perception in the summit was that with the specific measurement standards of PR and defined values which are linked with the business results will assist clients in planning and managing their campaigns in the most efficient manner. It will also foster internal communication capabilities and strength which can turn around the business profitability. However, Barcelona Principles are not end in its means and they can be customized to cater the growing needs of the industry but in the current scenario they serve the purpose of PR at its optimum levels. The seven principles of Barcelona Declaration of Measurement are summarized as:

1. Significance of Goal Setting and Measurement are elementary to any Public Relations program.

2. Media measurement requires quantitative and qualitative measurement. Quantitative measurements alone are not sufficient.

3. AVEs are not the value of PR.

4. Measurement of the social media is critical.

5. More priority is given to the measurement of outcomes than on outputs.

6. Transparency and Replicability are Paramount to Sound Measurement

7. Where ever feasible the effect on business results can and should be measures.

PRINCIPLES OVERVIEW AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

The principles of Barcelona Declaration of Measurement start with goal setting. For many public relations program setting up of goal is elementary concern. It's critical to have well defined and quantitative goal that addresses the issues of what, where, when and how of the marketing program. The measurement ideally needs to be done with the holistic approach that covers conventional marketing, social marketing, and creating awareness in the stakeholders, changing the attitudes and behavior and lastly evaluating its effect on the business results. When I say that principles of the Barcelona Declaration of Measurement is concerned with the evaluation of outcomes then what exactly is meant by it is that such outcomes are alteration in the awareness, attitude and behavior regarding the purchase pattern, company's brand equity, corporate reputation and integrity of its stake holders, employee commitment, public service, public policy and administration, investment decisions and social service and NGO governance and its entity building.

For measuring the effects of outcome, quantitative methods are always preferred however qualitative methods are also used to support the quantitative measures. The standard quantitative measures adopted are benchmark and tracking surveys. For surveys, the best procedure is including sample design, question wording and order and most importantly statistical analysis to show the transparency of the measurement effects and its results. The principle tells us the progression towards the best measurement technique. According to it outputs are fine, outcomes are better and business results are best, this hierarchy will take the company to its most reliable mode of measuring PR. This doesn't mean that outputs or outcomes are inferior or bad. However, PR moulds its productivity from the business results like revenues from sales when any marketing plan is put into action. There are various techniques adopted to measure such business results and its effects.

The Barcelona Declaration condemns the use of advertising Value equivalents (AVEs) to use it as a measure of public relations. The reason why AVE has not been considered as the measure of PR in this principle is that it is merely the measure of cost of advertisement like the media space which is usually done by simply taking the advertisement rates and then multiplying it with the standard multiplier of 2.5. It ignores the aspect of value which is created through this advertisement that contributes to the growth of public relations and in actual terms this value is the measure of public relations. Therefore the principle rejects both the concept of AVEs and the multiplier associated with it for the measurement of the public relations. There are various metrics available that can be used to make comparison among various advertising rates applied to the clients. These will clearly depicts the negotiated rates, actual quality of the placement and actual amount of coverage on the theme or on the client.

Social media is part and parcel of PR measurement arena; it is a control mechanism rather than a device or instrument, however there is no such thing as single metric. For successful operations organizations are in constant need of distinct and definite goals, for such purposes the end results from social media analysis should be considered and the analysis should be supported by web and search analytics, data of customer relationship management and other survey methodologies. Similar to the conventional media appraising quality and quantity is very critical; this should consider conversation and communities as its focal point rather than just an exposure.

Barcelona principle throws light on the common perception and discredits the mostly sought thinking that social media cannot be measured; rather it is an exoteric mode of communication. Just like you measure traditional media, you can measure social media. The idea is each participating country adopts the principles in the customized manner according to their market scenario. The progress of this report is evaluated by the number of votes received from Global Alliance and ICCO members depicting its acceptability globally. However, the principle should have been translated in other languages as well beside English and Spanish as the participants were from 33 different countries. Countries can adopt principles of Barcelona declaration in their unique and specific approach and all of them want to have strategy that gives them competitive edge. Although I feel whatever the strategy adopted or approach utilized for the measurement of outputs, outcomes or business effects, the principles provide a broader guidelines for the measurement of the PR and its effect on the stake holders and business overall. Barcelona principles are not the destination; in fact it's the roadmap towards the new beginning where innovation measures can be adopted to standardize the monitoring, measuring and evaluation the process of public relations globally (Barca, 2010).

ISSUES IN BARCELONA DECLARATION OF MEASUREMENT PRINCIPLES

Total Value of Public Relations Being Analyzed:

Public relation is a term that covers a wide stream of aspects in divergent disciplines like media management, online relations, crisis communications, public affairs, executive counseling, brand building, events, reputation management, employee communications and financial communications. Because of its intrinsic nature it's hard to calculate the value public relations generate to the organization. Keeping a side other aspects of public relations, I think it is more concerned with the media management and measuring media value. The measurement can go advance with the calculation of value and return on investment of public relations (Debate, 2010).

For measuring the public relations value the PR Value Cube is a top to bottom conceptual structure for the measurement of value of public relations and its effect on the organization overall value. The contributing factors of the PR are drawn down on the cube on (Y-axis) with the name of marketing, brand and reputation. Majority of the public relation measurement in the today's era falls under the category of marketing. It is concerned with the sales and campaigns and programs associated with marketing. This is the quantitative measurement of the public relations as it can be supported by the volume of sales generated from a specific marketing program. Creating brand equity is also the value measurement of public relations. These are more towards the subjective or qualitative measurement of value. Pragmatic public relations and societal or social marketing campaigns play a major role in creating brand awareness rather than focusing on revenues through higher sales. Besides marketing and creating brand awareness, many of the organizations have adopted the approach of reputation or word of mouth what we call in business language, for measuring public relations value. In this approach more of the basic instinct or gut feeling is more applied then the analytical techniques.

Among these aspects the value can be created through Engagement, Influence and action which is drawn on the (X-axis) of the cube. Engagement judges to what extent the PR approaches, programs and events have established the influence in the target market. Analyze the target market influence by the engagement through their reaction, interaction and networking and forwarding discussion about the brand to their friends and family. Influence is the outcome of engagement's impact on the audience. Their most potential action after being gone through the awareness process of brand will predict the positive or negative influence of the brand and will assist in the value creation of the public relation program to the business effect. The ultimate phase is the action step. After the influence process when discussed about it with family and friends has the target audience taken any step forward like clicking on the website, placing an order, recommending it to any fiend etc. The ultimate result of these aspects and their factors is the value creation. The axis on which value is created is (Z-axis) which shows that values is created either through increased revenue, or cost cutting, or cost ignorance like reduction in the recruitment cost due to high employee commitment and loyalty. And can also be combination of these.

One another important contemplation when analyzing the total value created by public relations and media is that of the 'time'. Creating value through public relations is a gradual process taking short-term influence and also building long-term impacts. Usually the volatility of the market depicts the life span of the value created by public relations. When the market is highly volatile then the life is shot lived. But when we say building brand equity and creating good reputation among the audience then these are basically long-term impacts. These are what I would say sequence oriented making up the value over time and when reached to its highest point will shed it too with over time (Kienle, 1998).

Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) replaced:

Advertisement are said to deliver lower return on investment relative to the public relations. Still they are compared with the PR reason being advertisement provides path towards the ROI and have no return is better than negligible return. AVEs are generally the measure of calculating the cost of advertisement with the standards rate multiplied with the multiplier. So they are considered to be an ineffective way of measuring the value of public relations. Now why are they consider it as a poor source of calculating the value of PR is illustrated with few identified areas which I will be discussing in the following text.

The advertisements and specifically editorial articles for the awareness creation are actually the views of third party and their understanding and perception on the readers is quite differently. Therefore it's not worthwhile to judge the value created from such material on the public relation although they contribute to a major extend in the awareness creation among the general public. Moreover AVE calculates the effectiveness of the advertisement on the basis of the cost of an advertisement. Costly the advertisement is the creative would be its design and placement at the ideal position with maximum reader's coverage. In reality, the actual value of an ad or any article in the magazine is measured through its outcome or impact not through the cost for its design and appearance. Some of the important parameters of public relations are left unaddressed like strategic counsel, crisis communications, public policy and affairs and social campaigns. If PR values are evaluated with AVE then it worth would not be correctly valued as some aspects will get ignored and the impact on the business will not be scrutinized effectively. For the successful marketing campaign and creating business value advertising and Public relation work best together but AVE consider them as substitutes however they are very different from each other with respect to their implication and outcomes. Advertisement's success is greatly dependent on the positive and negative attitude of the public. If there is an environment of positivity successful outcomes are guaranteed on contrary if there is negativity in the environment then advertisement failure is well predicted (Zaafrane, 2000).

Social Media And Pr Measurement Integration Raising The Business ROI:

Advent of the dot com world and transformation of the businesses to the web businesses, many of the measurement tasks is being handled by the web analytics. There are many web analytic available who do their job effectively. There are many benefits of going for web-based measurements most prominent ones are they are cost effective and thoroughly understands the what, who and where of the marketing. The only problem with the web based analytics is that it doesn't provide any practical rational for what is influencing that specific behavior. It doesn't outline the actual purpose of attitude change or the outcomes. Web analytics fails to answer such questions like:

What people are thinking when they are going for our products and services?

Why are they discussing about it?

What are the factors that is creating these changes and impacting business value?

The questions not only resolve the issues for marketing program success but they help in developing such plans more effectively in future. A complete and thorough social media and PR measurement approach is the one that encompasses web analytics, content analysis and primary audience research adds measurement quality and enhances influential approach. Social media measurement is being faced with number of issues and challenges. To standardize the measurement approach it important to learn how to quantify objectives. It is equally important to recognize that most objectives are not quantifiable these days and strategies are often misunderstood as objectives. Therefore measurable objectives should be explicit in terms of specific targets set like percentages, timeline, quality standards etc. The impact of social media is many times judged by the Return it can generate from investment that is ROI of the project over time. However in actual, social programs are structured to create impact in the society which can be progressive taking long time to give its result and thus strategically effecting business on the long-term basis not merely on the basis of investment cycle from inception to maturity. Value attribution model is great innovation in the measurement of PR in social marketing. It attempts to allot financial value to specific campaigns that are component of bigger marketing concern. Value attribution models integrate the human skills with technical expertise. Due to this reason many companies are not going for the value attribution model (Rockland, 2010).