Day: September 17, 2003

PR Week has a feature online this week on defending the PR business against some of the more common misconceptions.

“I take a lot of pride in this profession,” says Dave Samson, VP of international PR for Oracle. “I get frustrated when I see tired, worn-out ideas of what PR is.” Samson adds that the responsibility for banishing negative perceptions belongs to those actively engaged in the industry. “We have an obligation to change the view of our profession. More and more, there are people that really get it rising to the senior roles inside agencies and corporations.”

We recently looked at the thorny issue of PR measurement.

Today I came across an interesting announcement from a firm called Agency Analytics [Partial FLASH warning].

“The firm announced the first set of services and tools designed to help organizations measure, analyze and optimize the performance of their public relations agency partners. The service suite, called Agency Performance Management (APM), is a unique methodology for auditing, scorecarding and benchmarking PR agency performance, and can help companies increase program yields by 20 to 40 percent.”

So in essence their raison d’etre is to measure the performance of the PR company as distinct from solely measuring the program results.  The services they offer include:

• Auditing your existing agency
• Helping to hire a new agency
• Get your new agency up and running
• Measure them over time

While this offering is interesting, in that it’s in my knowledge unique, I’m not sure of the value proposition here.  My feeling is that your agency is measured by the client’s level of satisfaction with the agency’s work, advice and ultimately outcomes. I’m not sure where these guys fit in to the process.

After all, if you are going to measure your PR programs, then measure your agency, who will measure the firm measuring your agency?

I’d be interested in your views on this.

Footnote:
Interestingly under the link for “Management Team” there’s a vague paragraph but no names, biographies or information.  They did announce the appointment of Michael Young formerly of Porter Novelli, Ketchum and Tech Image as CEO – a case of poacher turned gamekeeper eh?

Fashion PR isn’t really my area of expertise, this is very apparent to anyone who knows me!

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting Q&A with arguably the most influential editor-in-chief in the fashion world, Anne Wintour of Vogue.

There are two sides to the blog conundrum for today’s PR professional.

First of all there’s a whole new market of influencers whom, as we’ve said here many times, it makes sense for PR professionals to include in any outreach program.

Secondly blogs provide organizations with a cheap yet effective means of establishing dialogue with their audience.  Sharing from the fountain of the Cluetrain, organizations can show the human side of their firm through the blog medium – as well as helping to promote their expertise etc.

The Boston Herald has a story on this very subject using Novidian‘s corporate weblog as an example.

It seems for some unknown reason my blog software, Radio Userland ate my blog and therefore removed it from the web.

Apologies to anyone who thought I might have disapeared.

I have been opening Windows and clicking boxes in the vain hope of solving the problem and it looks like I have.

Phew.