A Challenge to Industry: Devise a Measurement Standard Where Outcomes Will Be Useful

Eric Koefoot,  President & CEO, PublicRelayP&G pulled $200 million from its digital ad spend last year and, last month, called on the industry to fix rampant ad fraud and set a standard third-party verification system in place. Strategic Profile Management’s Graeme Harris in a recent PR News article, was quick to point out this analytics issue and added that measurement in the PR world is even in a more torpid state than its advertising counterpart.Today, while our industry is abandoning (largely discredited) AVEs – and moving towards an outcome method of thinking, we are very far from the finish line. Nowadays, with the rise of social media, there is a plethora of inconsistent, and often “vague” metrics (like awareness, buzz, influencer, amplification) that vary in meaning from analytics provider to provider. Worse yet, many of these vendors provide data that is of questionable accuracy, if not irrelevant.I agree with Harris, the industry needs to consistently deliver measurement that is insightful, reliable and exceeding expectations and do so in a standardized fashion. He adds all businesses have fundamental goals: revenue, costs and profit.  To be relevant, Communicators need to show that they have trusted data and are using it to contribute to meeting these goals.Read Harris’ full piece A Challenge to Industry: Devise a Measurement Standard Where Outcomes Will Be Useful.