PR Measurement:  Does media coverage alone impact business outcomes?

Published 2007

Ongoing research is continually debunking the adage of old-style publicists that ‘any publicity is good publicity’ or that a big one-off media ‘splash’ will help achieve desired business outcomes.

Rather, it is demonstrating that for today’s public relations professionals (who need to justify their pr campaign or program to hard-headed business people) that there are three essential elements to success; continuity of media coverage, the share of media obtained relative to competitors, and the tone and messages that reach recipients.

Of course there are always situations where old-style ‘publicity’ does work, e.g. one well-placed media story of a product or service on A Current Affair will certainly achieve immediate, albeit short-term impact.

However, a body of research has also been built up over recent years showing that where a simple educational message (eg a health warning) has to be disseminated, that the outcomes can be directly linked to the volume of media coverage achieved.  

But, examination of hundreds of case studies has revealed that while media coverage may be obtained, it has to reach a level of critical mass to have impact.

The Harvard Business Review (February 2007 - Reputation and its Risks) calls it the “awareness threshold”, a level required to be reached to reap the benefits of competitive share.

“This volume, which must be continual, varies somewhat from company to company depending on the industry and country, but not on company size”, say the authors Robert Eccles, Scott Newquist and Roland Schatz.

The importance of ‘share of coverage’ and ‘messaging’ is explored in a study “Exploring the Link Between Share of Media Coverage and Business Outcomes”, published by the Institute for Public Relations in the US. It follows an earlier study done by the same authors, (Angela Jeffrey, David Michaelson and Don Stacks) that looked at the link between coverage volume and business outcomes.

Among the points the Study makes are:

• clip tonnage alone may be sufficient to drive outcomes for simple, non controversial campaigns,
• however, tone and message-refined volume is needed for real-world situations where negative coverage will damage desired outcomes, and even positive volume (without a compelling message) may fall flat
• competitive share of quality-refined media coverage (Share of Discussion) has a strong link in business outcomes

The study contains three case studies, as well as a simplified methodology for calculating Share of Discussion metrics.

To demonstrate how public relations professionals should think strategically about media engagement strategies, the study suggests:

• Considering planning goals, objectives and tactics that focus on areas in which one’s competition is weak. In short it is sometimes better to dominate media coverage in an area where the competition is weak, thus emphasising your superiority, as opposed to simply focusing on your strengths.  This is similar to the economic principle of ‘competitive advantage’.
• Tone and messaging is vital. A company can out-shout the competition all it wants, but if its message is off-strategy, or its tonality in negative, little will be achieved.Continuity is vital. Steady, on-going campaigns are much better than short publicity bursts and disjointed, seat-of-the-pants messaging.
• Using Share of Discussion metrics to demonstrate how PR can contribute to bottom-line business outcomes.