Research Yields Best Metric for Measuring Media Against Outcomes; Sophisticated New Measure now Available to PR Pros of all Budget Levels
PRtrak introduces the Media Prominence Index, which combines hard quantitative data with soft qualitative refinements that make it the most accurate metric yet to measure media coverage. This metric has been tested on 200,000 clips and against business outcomes, and improves correlations between media coverage and business outcomes in competitive analysis. The metric is well-received by highly respected PR researchers, and the press release includes a case study. This metric is now available in PRtrak's basic do-it-yourself web system, which starts at $100/month, as well as in PRtrak's full-service higher-end systems.
Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) February 9, 2005 -- For decades, PR professionals have searched for a way to efficiently measure media coverage in relation to business outcomes. Now, at last, such a research-proven metric has been developed and is available to practitioners of even the lowest budget levels. The metric is called the Media Prominence Index (MPI), and is brought to the PR industry by the same analytical powerhouse that specializes in predictive modeling in illness, weather and allergies for Fortune 100s -- Philadelphia-based Surveillance Data, Inc., home of PRtrak media measurement systems.
According to Gerald Kress, chairman of SDI, the MPI has been in development for the past twelve months, and has been rigorously tested utilizing hundreds of thousands of news articles and pitted against specific client company outcomes.
Based on the controversies and dissatisfactions with the metrics available to the PR industry up to this point, we set out to mathematically determine a reliable metric for capturing both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of unpaid media. We reverse-engineered our own sophisticated processes to yield an algorithm that most closely correlates competitive media coverage with solid business outcomes. The new MPI provides a hard benchmark against which practitioners can gauge progress most efficiently and accurately," said Kress.
The Media Prominence Index was actually inspired by two high-level public relations researchers, Bruce Jeffries-Fox, of Jeffries-Fox Associates, and Dr. David Michaelson of David Michaelson and company, LLC, who challenged SDI to utilize its analytical capabilities to create scoring comprised of market-driven and qualitative factors.
PRtraks MPI is unique in its market-driven measure of prominence. This is one of the few measures today that truly looks at the likelihood of consumer exposure in a way that is verifiable by third parties," said Michaelson.
Jeffries-Fox agrees, The strength of the metric is that it ties objective media analysis data with marketplace behavior. Thats something weve been trying to do for a long time."
The MPI is the latest discovery from SDI, which has spent the last three and a half years analyzing millions of stories in more than 160 studies through an advanced linguistics, artificial-intelligence system to determine which factors most closely link outputs and outcomes. These studies involved clients from major pharmaceutical and packaged-goods firms down to non-profit hospitals and colleges. According to Angela Jeffrey, APR, vice president of the PRtrak Division of SDI, two factors emerged early in all the studies: 1) the importance of competitive analysis, and 2) the importance of precision, negotiated media data in combination with qualitative analysis.
We learned very quickly that 'Share of Discussion, which is the 'quality and quantity of a firms nonpaid media compared to that of its competitors, was the real link between media outputs and business outcomes like sales, customer preference, prescription volume, etc. Out of all our Share of Discussion studies, 96% have shown strong correlations -- some high enough to allow sales predictions, which is incredibly positive news for the public relations industry," said Jeffrey. However, correlations were not seen when inaccurate or inflated media metrics were used, or when story slant was ignored.
Too often, practitioners try to find the highest possible impressions or media costs for their coverage, and take credit for entire stories when they may only have had a single quote that cited their firm. This works against you, though, because artificial inflation only obscures the links. We know now that whatever metric you choose to use, it must be tonality-weighted, which means subtracting your negative coverage from neutral plus positive for a 'net positive score," said Jeffrey.
So, which metric works best in Share of Discussion? Two years ago, SDI ran several studies comparing various media metrics to see which made the correlations strongest. The most interesting was a Share of Discussion study on five nonprofit colleges, with the outcome measure being the results of a parental preference survey. The metrics to be compared were net positive Story Counts, Audience Impressions and Media Values, and the overall correlation to outcomes was R=.90.
This study showed that Media Value was 12.4% more accurate than Impressions, and 25.6% more accurate than Story Counts, when correlating to outcomes (see accompanying study). Media Value worked best because it is a market-driven metric that captures size/length of story, relative size of audience, relative credibility of source and prominence. But the old ad value metric has been so misused by practitioners claiming success based on the ad value generated rather than on the business outcomes produced. It was clear we needed the positive aspects of value as a base, but would need to refine it by qualitative factors before it would become a truly meaningful measure," said Jeffrey.
Through further research, SDI tested a nine-point Tonality Scale, a nine-point Prominence Scale, and the Media Value associated with each story. The exact algorithm was refined through a Share of Discussion study utilizing 200,000 articles and tested against specific outcome measures. The algorithm was repeatedly tweaked, and the data rerun with different weightings, until researchers were satisfied that it offered the best possible correlations. The resulting index simply assigns numeric scores to articles without dollar signs or any direct association to advertising," said Jeffrey.
To illustrate the power of the new Index, SDI ran a case study on a regional hospital system in North Carolina. The outcome measure against which results were compared was the annual consumer preference study. Two areas were focused upon for which the hospital had generated considerable editorial efforts - Cardiology and Cancer. The study utilized 10,000 story placements from TV, radio, newspaper, magazine and Internet for the prior three years, for ten competitors. SDI compared results for Media Value and the new Media Prominence Index, since the researchers already knew Media Value improved correlations over Impressions and Story Counts. All stories were analyzed through PRtrak Ai and were checked by senior analysts.
The results were stunning. For the Cardiology Department, the correlation between Share of Discussion based on Media Value and results of a Consumer Preference Survey had a reasonably good R value of .52; however, correlations soar to .94 when using Share of Discussion with the Media Prominence Index.
The results were stunning. In Graph A below, which illustrates the Cardiology results, the correlation between Share of Discussion based on Media Value and consumer preference had a reasonably good R value of .52; however, correlations soar to .94 when using Share of Discussion with the Media Prominence Index.
Similarly, for the Cancer Clinic, Share of Discussion using Media Value showed a correlation of .51 with consumer preference, whereas it rose to .97 when using the MPI. See Chart B below.
The Media Prominence Index has now been built into the new PRtrak Web Version 2.0, which is being released this week. At a starting price point of $100/month, PRtrak will make this sophisticated metric available to virtually everyone. SDI also offers full-service options in PRtrak Plus and PRtrak Ai, at very competitive price points.
For more information, contact Angela Jeffrey at angie@prtrak.com, or 713-956-1516.
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