PR Newswire today announced the launch of a groundbreaking service for organizations and agencies in need of a meaningful, yet cost-effective measurement and evaluation tool for their media relations programs globally.
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MediaSense, as the new service is called, will enable organizations to assess and help ensure the success of their overall communications programs through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the media coverage they receive. MediaSense will assist in measuring the impact of communications by providing a clear understanding of what messages are resonating with the media, and in turn, how a company is perceived by its publics. Communicators can use MediaSense to evaluate the success of product launches and corporate announcements including executive appointments and surveys, as well as help to manage crisis communications, among other things.
"Everywhere you turn there are experts touting the importance of measuring the results of a communications program," said Dave Armon, chief operating officer for PR Newswire. "We have worked tirelessly to create a solution that has been thoroughly tested by and accepted by PR firms and corporations. Now it's time to launch that service globally."
MediaSense can be deployed over any 90-day period or utilized throughout the course of a full year on an annual subscription. Reports will be delivered monthly and contain an evaluation of media coverage based upon several measures. Quantitative measures will include volume of coverage and coverage by media type. Qualitative measures will include an evaluation of each article's tone (positive, negative, neutral), the presence of key corporate messages within articles, the overall quality of coverage based upon an article's length, placement, publication type and tone, and the equivalent ad value. All quantitative measurements will be evaluated based upon a comparison to a company's key competitors, while qualitative reports will offer an unbiased assessment of how a company is portrayed in the press.
Demand for services like MediaSense is high, according to a spring 2005 PR Newswire survey of more than 2,500 communicators in which 80% of respondents believe measuring how messages resonate with intended audiences will be "somewhat to extremely important" in the coming year. However, a 2004 poll of more than 130 senior marketers conducted by the Council of Public Relations Firms and Advertising Age's Custom Programs Division, revealed that suppliers of media evaluation services are not meeting this need. Only 35% of respondents said they had a separate budget for measuring the impact of public relations.
"There's a reason for this," said Armon. "A focus group of our customers illustrated that while most recognize the need to measure the effectiveness of their communications programs, the services that are available are cost and time prohibitive. We designed MediaSense to overcome this by providing a comprehensive analysis of an organization's communications efforts, while alleviating the budgetary and management challenges normally associated with such services."
Tested through an early adopter program over the past three months by organizations including BP and American Greetings, this new tool will meet a need in the marketplace for a more cost-effective, yet thorough analytics service.
Laurie Henrichsen, manager, corporate and consumer communications, American Greetings Corporation, signed on as an early adopter because measuring the results of her campaigns is of critical importance to her. Previously, Henrichsen employed a variety of methods, ranging from vendor- provided measurement services to in-house efforts. According to Henrichsen, these services provided valuable data, but they were not cost effective and were often labor intensive.
"I have always relied on PR Newswire for its high quality news distribution and targeting services, so I was very interested in piloting its new measurement service. PR Newswire's service provided all the key categories of measurement we needed," said Henrichsen. "Once we established our criteria, the service required little staff time. The charts and executive summaries were shared in a format that made it easy to identify strengths and weaknesses and share results with our executives. PR Newswire's service is a great value, and fills a void in the marketplace that until now was not being met."
BP's director of corporate communications, Sarah Howell, recognizes the value of measuring communications programs, but the company took the task in- house when other measurement services proved to be too cost-prohibitive and time-consuming to maintain, "measuring our efforts has always been an important part of our communications programs because we rely on the market sector and press intelligence to help us understand if we are on target with our messages."
At the end of PR Newswire's early adopter pilot program, Howell was very pleased with the results she saw in that "it provided a sense of how our messages were standing out against our competitors."
"I used PR Newswire's early adopter pilot service to take a temperature of how these issues are covered in the industry. As always, PR Newswire took great pains to answer questions pertinent to my measurement needs and to tweak the system so I would get the most reliable analysis from the program," Howell said.
Armon concluded, "Before you launch a campaign you should know what messages already exist in the marketplace - whether driven by the media, your competitors or your own efforts - so you can create new messages that will differentiate you from the noise. MediaSense is designed to help you do just this, while enabling you to continue measuring the success of your ongoing efforts to support your business objectives."
MediaSense uses qualitative analysis technology developed by KWHR. Based in London, England, KWHR provides measurement and evaluation services on behalf of global companies such as Dell and Sony. KWHR's Managing Director, Keith Woods-Holder, sees MediaSense as a service able to meet the needs of a wider spectrum of customers. "Advanced content evaluation has, up until now, been the preserve of leading global brands. But the need to demonstrate ROI and benefits from campaigns affects all businesses. MediaSense will set a new standard for measurement and evaluation that many more brands can benefit from," said Woods-Holder.
About PR Newswire
Now in its 51st year, PR Newswire Association LLC (http://www.prnewswire.com/) provides electronic distribution, targeting, measurement, translation and broadcast services on behalf of some 40,000 corporate, government, association, labor, non-profit, and other customers worldwide. Using PR Newswire, these organizations reach a variety of critical audiences including the news media, the investment community, government decision-makers, and the general public with their up-to-the-minute, full-text news developments.
Established in 1954, PR Newswire has offices in 11 countries and routinely sends its customers' news to outlets in 135 countries and in 30 languages. Utilizing the latest in communications technology, PR Newswire content is considered a mainstay among news reporters, investors and individuals who seek breaking news from the source. PR Newswire's leading services include ProfNet ExpertsSM, eWatch™, MEDIAtlas™, NewsPrompt™, Search Engine Visibility (SEV) and MultiVu™. PR Newswire is a subsidiary of United Business Media plc of London.
Contact: Rachel Meranus, director of public relations, PR Newswire 212.282.1929 orrachel.meranus@prnewswire.com
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CONTACT: Rachel Meranus, Director of Public Relations of PR Newswire,
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