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PART I
Introduction to Public Relations Research, Measurement, and Evaluation
Part I introduces the reader to the practice of public relations and the concept of âBest Practices.â Chapter 1 provides a quick glance on the history of contemporary public relations practice and how best practices approach makes public relations results important to a company or client. Chapter 2 presents the most current thoughts on measurement standardization and argues that for public relations to be considered a profession, it must establish standards against which its outcomes can be compared and set a basis for the function as a profession. The professional is the strategist who designs the public relation campaign and, in turn, must collect, assess, and evaluate data that tells him or her whether the program is on target and make corrections as needed.
Chapter 3 lays out the role of public relations as a necessary business function and establishes the groundwork for public relations researchâresearch that focuses on business goals and objectives and the stating of such public relations goals and objectives that are measurable and indicative (can be correlated with) of businessâs investment in public relations through return on investment (ROI). It also introduces the reader to public relationsâ outcomes and what is labeled return on expectations (ROE). Finally, Chapter 4 introduces the concept of measurement, assessment, and evaluation of public relations through a coordinated campaign aimed at measuring predispositions toward behavior through attitude, belief, and value measures.
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CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Research and Evaluations in Public Relations
Contemporary public relations practice has developed since the mid-20th century from the weak third sister in the marketing, advertising, and public relations mix to gain status as a full and equal player in the corporate suite. Part of that development can be traced to a change in the way public relations is practiced. The early days of public relations functionsâlimited to media relations and âpress agentryââhave evolved to a sophisticated array of communications where public relations is no longer an afterthought, but is an integral part of the communications mix.
A central reason for this change in the perceptions of and stature of public relations in the communications world is the inclusion of research, measurement, and evaluation as a core part of the practiceâtools that have been integral to the practice of marketing and advertising for decades. The purpose of this book is to provide the business reader and communications professional with the necessary and practical understanding of the problems and promises of public relations research, measurement, and evaluationâand more importantly as a guide to the effective use of methods, measures, and analysis in providing grounded evidence of the success (or failure) of public relations campaigns.
Defining Public Relations and Its Objectives
Why exactly is this profession called public relations? For many it is simply one of the three promotional areas that management uses to get its message out: marketing, advertising, and public relations. What has differentiated them in the past can be viewed in terms of (a) what a business expects it to do and (b) the kinds of outcomes it produces. In all too many eyes, public relations only includes dealing with media relations. That is, public relationsâ objective is to get coverage of the businessâpreferably positiveâthrough the placement of articles and the like as endorsed by journalists.
But public relations is much more than press agentry or media relations. It is better seen as an umbrella term for any number of departments in a business or corporation that seeks to get its messages out to various publics or audiences by managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics or audiences (Grunig and Hunt 1984). Public is a part of a population that has been selected for study; an audience is a specifically targeted group within that public that has been targeted for a companyâs messages. What then is public relations? First and foremost, public relations serves to manage the credibility, reputation, trust, relationship, and confidence of the general public in relation to the company (Stacks 2017). As Professor Donald K. Wright noted, âPublic relations is the management function that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the various publics on which its success or failure dependsâ (Wright 1990).
How is public relations practiced if it is an umbrella concept? Its practice can be defined by its function in the organization. Public relations takes on the following functions, sometimes alone and at other times as a combined function. The following list neither is complete nor is it listed by importance of function:
Community relations
Corporate communication
Customer relations
Employee relations
Financial relations
Governmental relations
Media relations
Public affairs
Strategic communication
What then are public relationsâ objectives? There are three major objectives any public relations campaign seeks to accomplish. The first is to ensure that the messages get out to their intended audiences and that they are understood (informational objective). The second is to monitor the campaign so that benchmarks are set regarding the acceptance of messages by target audiences in terms of cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitudinal or belief acceptance or rejection or maintenance (âmotivational objectiveâ). And, the third is predicting what the target audience will actually do based on the campaign (âbehavioral objectiveâ). As Stacks (2011) points out, each objective must be met and then monitored before the next objective can be obtained. In essence, public relations is a broad scale function that encompasses the full range of communication from message development, to message delivery, receipt of message, impact on target audiences, and effect on business outcomes.
In forthcoming chapters we will introduce a number of ideas of how a public relations campaign should operate and be measured across the full range of public relations. We will look at how traditional and digital public relations campaigns experienced unintended problems due to a lack of research and how the failure to establish measurable objectives, baselines, and benchmarks limits the effectiveness of public relations. More importantly, we introduce a practical approach to public relations research that will result in better and more effective communications programs. Finally, we will move from a focus on best practices to standards. Best practices are sufficient conditions to research and they have been in the profession surpassed by an understanding that standards must be set that allow for evaluation against set research and measurement metrics. It is only then that results can be evaluated and transmitted to the client.
A Brief History of Public Relations Research
The formal origins of public relations research can be traced to the 1950s (The New York Times 1990). During that period, a company called Group Attitudes Corporation was acquired by Hill & Knowlton (The New York Times 1990). The primary focus of Group Attitudes Corporation was to function as a standalone yet captive arm of the parent agency. Its work included research for the Tobacco Institute (Legacy Tobacco Document Library n.d.), as well as for other Hill & Knowlton clients. The primary focus of this research, taken from a review of several published reports, was to assess reaction to communication messages and vehicles using processes that appear similar to the research methods employed by the advertising industry during this same period. This industry model was followed over the next 25 years with the establishment of research arms at several other public relations agencies. In addition to Hill & Knowlton, the major public relations agencies that have had research departments include Burson-Marsteller (Penn Schoen Berland), Ruder Finn (Research & Forecasts), Ketchum, Weber Shandwick (KRC), Edelman (Edelman Insights), Ogilvy Public Relations, APCO, Golin Harris and Cohn & Wolfe. For the most part, the primary function of these agency-based research departments was similar to the work initially conducted by Group Attitudes Corporation. Most of these research departments were created internally, with the notable exception of Penn Schoen Berland that was acquired by WPP and later merged into Burson-Marsteller.
As early as the 1930s, methods were also being developed by advertisers and their agencies that linked exposure and persuasion measures to actual store sales. In essence, testing, measurement, analysis, and evaluation systems became an integral part of the advertising industry. These systems became so institutionalized by mid-decade that an academic journalâThe Journal of Advertising Researchâas well as an industry associationâThe Advertising Research Foundationâwere established in 1936. Other journals followed and formal academic programs in marketing research were established at major universities throughout the United States.
During the late 1970s, it became increasingly apparent that public relations differed considerably from other communications disciplines, and advertising in particular, in its ability to be measured and evaluated. At the time, advertising testing was dominated by a variety of measurement and evaluation systems of which the day after recall (DAR) method, popularized by Burke Marketing Research in its work with Procter & Gamble, was one of the most common systems in use. These advertising-focused methods took on a source orientation and assumed that the message was completely controlled by the communicator (Miller and Levine 2009; Miller and Burgoon 1974). Therefore, the ability to test message recall and message efficacy were highly controllable and, in theory, projectable as to what would occur if the advertising were actually to be placed.
With the recognition that public relations needed a different set of measures because of the unique nature of the profession, senior management at several major public relations agencies charged their research departments with the task of finding more credible and reliable methods to measure the effectiveness of public relations activities. While a number of experiments were undertaken at that time, the primary benefit derived from this experimentation was a heightened awareness of the overall value of measuring public relations.
This heightened awareness, along with advances in specific technologies, led to the founding of a number of research companies during the 1980s and 1990s that specialize in measuring and evaluating the outcome of public relations activities as well as a trade association (International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, formerly known as the Association of Media Evaluation Companies, AMEC; www.amecorg.com), the Commission on Public Relations Research and Evaluation and the Research Fellows both of which are affiliated with the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) (www.instituteforpr.org). Currently, numerous companies offer services that measure and evaluate public relations activities. These companies have traditionally focused on evaluating only the outcomes of public relations, most commonly as media or press coverage that is a direct result of media relations activities (outputs). Few of their staff have formal or academic research training outside of âon the jobâ training in content analysis and, unlike other forms of communication research, these companies typically place little emphasis on formative, programmatic or diagnostic research, or research that is used to develop communication strategies and evaluate the impact of communication activities on the target audiences.
The primary limitation of these companies is their focus on an intermediary in the public relations processâthe mediaârather than on the target audience(s) for these communication activities.
While the legacy of these public relations research agencies, as well as the services they provide the public relations industry, is noteworthy, for the most part they have failed to significantly advance either the science or the art of public relations measurement and evaluation because of their strong emphasis on media relations.
This lack of advancement occurred despite an insistence and commitment by the leadership of the profession that research functions as a key and essential element to the creation of effective and successful public relations programs. These industry leaders demanding the use of research in the development and evaluation of public relations programs included luminaries such as Harold Burson (Burson-Marsteller), Daniel Edelman (Edelman Worldwide), and David Finn (Ruder Finn), each of whom established dedicated research functions in their respective agencies.
The most significant commitment of the industry leadership to this nascent discipline was the founding i...
