Do you know Jack about PR measurement?

The 2009 Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award, created by the Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation, is open for entry here.  Entry deadline is Aug. 15, 2009. The award recognizes superb examples of research used to support public relations practice.

The Institute for Public Relations publishes the winners as case studies on its website. Winners will receive their awards at the Summit on Measurement held in October in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (USA).

PR News is the award program’s media partner. The award is named for Jack Felton, who served as President and CEO of the Institute and was instrumental in founding the Commission.

Quest for the Golden Ruler – How Does Your Campaign Measure Up?

Entries to the 2008 Jack Felton Golden Ruler award designed to honor excellence in public relations measurement, research and evaluation, and sponsored by the Institute for Public Relations, are open and being accepted until July 31, 2008.  Here’s a note from the Chair of the Golden Ruler Committee, Toni Griffin, to IPR Measurement Commission members.  Good luck!

Dear Fellow Commission Members:

Good evening. I hope you all enjoyed the long holiday weekend.

Earlier this month, the Institute for Public Relations announced the Call for Entries for the 2008 Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award, an award created by the Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation. As chair of this year’s Golden Ruler Award Committee, I can think of no better way for you to demonstrate your support for excellence in research, measurement and evaluation than for you or one of your colleagues to submit an entry for this year’s Golden Ruler award.

As you know, the award’s primary objective is to identify superb examples of measurement integrated into public relations practice, and to publish these as case studies on the Institute’s website. The judging criteria fall into three broad categories: research methods, contributions to the practice of public relations, and quality and substance of findings.

Entry forms, which are available here must be received by July 31, 2008. As is the Institute’s practice, winners will be honored at an award ceremony at the Summit on Measurement held in October in Portsmouth, NH. In addition to the Golden Ruler, this year the judging committee may also select silver and merit level award winners.

I know how committed you are to standards of excellence in research and measurement. On behalf of the Golden Ruler Award Committee, I thank you in advance for your consideration about submitting an entry for this year’s award.

All the best,

Toni L. Griffin

To Win Industry Awards Proper Measurement Is Crucial

I was honored this year to be asked by Paul Holmes to serve as a judge for the Sabre Awards.  It was my first judging experience and I found it very rewarding and learned a lot.  Across the five categories I judged there was a lot of great work by obviously talented professionals.  With so much great work, it often comes down to which entry does the best job of demonstrating, through an effective measurement effort,  stated objectives were met or exceeded.  While there were good examples of this practice, there were many more submissions that simply failed to demonstrate the true success of their impressive campaigns. 

Here are the three most common oversights of the non-winning entries I reviewed: 

1. Objectives Not Measurable – The majority of the stated objectives in the entries, as written, were not measurable.  One cannot measure, ‘Increase Awareness’ or ‘Generate Coverage’.  One could measure, ‘Increase Awareness From 10% to 25% in the Next 12 Months’ or ‘Generate 1,000,000 Impressions in the First 6 Months of the Campaign’.  (See my previous diatribes on measurable objectives here) 
2. Strategies Masquerading as Objectives – If objectives are ‘what’ we want to accomplish, then strategies are ‘how’.  Sentences beginning with action words like, ‘leverage’, ‘educate’, ‘promote’ or ‘communicate’ are almost always a strategy and not an objective.  Also, media coverage is almost always a strategy and not the objective.  The vast majority of award entries had one or more strategies posing as objectives.
3. Measurement Misaligned With Objectives– By misaligned I am referring to an objective that is an outcome (or influence) supported by measurement of only outputs (or exposure).  If we are trying to create awareness or change an opinion, we can not demonstrate success by only reporting on the number of impressions generated.  Great programs articulate the desired business outcomes, write PR objectives aligned with these outcomes, and then report on the metrics directly tied to the PR objectives.   

In summary, many of the entries made the hard stuff (great creativity and execution) look easy, and the easy stuff (writing proper objectives, measuring the correct metrics) look hard.  Better than the other way around I guess.  And lots of room for improvement.