Thanks very much for reading and your comment. Hope all is well in my second favorite country. I agree there are challenges to getting proper population numbers or even tight estimates thereof. The available data is somewhat better for consumer markets (e.g. census data) than it is for B2B markets. Estimating, say, the number of working chemical engineers in Canada is a difficult number to come by and would require some estimation or extrapolation.

I don’t necessarily agree with factoring the reach estimate by some variable of quality (e.g. prominence, tonality). I believe there is some merit in keeping the ‘opportunities to see’ pure and then, perhaps, making some qualitative assessments in order to guesstimate the likely marketing impact.

For the levels of media activity by region, presumably we’re speaking about regional and not national issues because anything of national interest that breaks in a particular region quickly (same hour/day/week) goes national. It might be more straightforward to start with the audiences (i.e. are there regional differences in topics, tastes, incomes, etc.?) and then see which media channels best reach each of the audiences that you/your clients have an interest in.

Thanks again Andrew. -Don B

I’ve been thinking for a while on a similar question as it pertains to comparing levels of media activity in different regions — that is, providing a valid metric over time that says media in the North are more active on the topic than media in the South. It’s easy to say coverage/impressions was greater in one region than the next, but whether there was really more activity in the West versus the East is more complicated, because it requires standardizing in some way the total potential audience and/or newshole available.

Nonetheless, always love questions about methods and metrics.

Thanks for reading, your comment and kind words. I think your 2 in 5 estimate of ‘easy to eliminate’ entries is a good guesstimate. Many of the entries I reviewed would have been given a ‘C’ in an undergraduate college course. Pretty disappointing from an industry-wide perspective. Perhaps a few of these companies should hire you to advise them on their award entries.
Cheers, DB

I’m always happy to find a new Metricsman post. I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of awards judging. It is a great honor but it can also be a little discouraging to see how many entrants disqualify themselves by falling for the traps you’ve mentioned. What most entry planners seem not to recognize is that the first order of business for every judging panel on which I’ve served is to weed out those that don’t meet the most basic criteria such as “measurable objectives,” “research undertaken” and “evaluation.”

As soon as judges see an objective like “generate significant buzz” or “creatively break through the media clutter” they know it’s a dog and place it in the reject pile. And when they turn to the “evaluation” section of the looseleaf and all find only clip listings or photocopied clips, they know that it’s not a winner.

On the other hand, I’ve judged programs with budgets under $5,000 that included measures of meaningful business outcomes and they provide hope.

Given that these awards require a lot of preparation and resources beyond the entry fee, and given how much emphasis agencies place on winning them, you’d think they’d get the simple things right…In my experience, two in five are almost automatically disqualified for the reasons you mention.

You’re a beacon of sanity, Don…keep your light shining brightly.