Inbound PR

Chapter 2PR and Measurement

The History of Measurement in Public Relations and Communications

The single biggest challenge that PR pros have been facing since the very birth of the industry has been measurement.

Just google PR measurement and you'll see tons of articles explaining how advertising value equivalents (AVEs) don't work, how we need a new set of tools to measure PR results, how PR hasn't adjusted to the new era of digital and metrics, and so on.

The problems associated with measuring the effectiveness of PR have their roots in a lot of insecurities over the last century within the PR industry itself and a number of failed attempts to find a measurement framework that can be universally accepted and approved not just by PR professionals themselves but also by clients, stakeholders, shareholders, and other interest groups.

If you do a little bit of research into the topic of measurement for communications you'll no doubt find Professor Tom Watson of Bournemouth University in England, who has been researching public relations measurement and evaluation for the past 20 years. He says: “I'd like to say that it's a story of continuous improvement in public relations practice and its measurement and evaluation, but that's not the case. I find that the emphasis on consumer and marketing-led PR since the 1950s has fostered poor practices, although major corporations have moved ahead” (Watson, 2011).

This inability to find one way to measure PR and prove its worth to the ...