Review: 2nd European Summit on Measurement, Barcelona

by Robert Fekl

Tim Marklein (Executive VP, Measurement & Strategy, Weber Shandwick) stressed that media analysis now needs to respond to new key performance indicators, sources and concepts, and that there needs to be a more intense linking with data from different areas (e.g. customer and employee satisfaction surveys, financial analysts data, sales numbers). His credo is: media meets strategy, or rather: a good evaluation contains many strategic elements. Tim Marklein was not alone in his call for stronger consulting practices in media analyses. He was supported, not surprisingly, by other speakers with a stronger background in consulting – such as Christopher Storck (Managing Director, Hering Schuppener), John Paluszek (Chair of the Global Alliance and Senior Counsellor, Ketchum) and Stuart Smith (Head of Corporate Practice, EMEA, Hill & Knowlton), as well as leaders from the field of media evaluation (e.g. David Michaelson – President, Echo Research Inc, Brendan Swale – Executive Director, Product and Innovation – Media Monitors).

New Technologies a guarantee for the future of the industry

Besides the stronger application of consulting methods in the field of media analysis, another trend that surfaced at the summit was the automatic analysis of text contents. This development is driven by the rapidly growing amount of data, particularly in the social media field, with a simultaneously increasing demand for faster results (the keyword being “real time analysis”).

Mark Westaby (former founder of Metrica and founder and director of Spectrum Consulting) took a strong stand towards this trend: automatic analyses – even with a high qualitative quota – are quicker, more convenient and substantially better than the results produced with human coding. This was a controversial position that was widely discussed at the summit – especially his statement in regards to the quality aspect. The fact that the future belongs to this form of analysis was not questioned, but Mark Westaby emphasized that this future has already arrived.

Besides the high stress on practice, the summit’s ace in the sleeve was its international aspect. Strong speakers from Europe and the USA were accompanied by interesting contributions from the Middle and Far East. The rapid expansion of providers of media monitoring and analysis services was the most fascinating aspect, especially considering that in just five to ten years automatic analysis, high consulting skills and social media analyses became a standard practice. This position was represented by Aseem Sood (COO Impact Research, India), Mazen Nahawi (President of News Group International, Dubai) and Alan Lim (CEO MediaBanc, Malaysia).

The second day: trends, exclusive insights into practice and the making of a declaration

A glance into the future: the next generation of communication research

The third day was devoted to the future of the industry. Ricardo Baeza-Yates (VP of Research for Europe and Latin America, Yahoo! Labs) outlined the future of web searches, in which user-generated content will be determined by the amount as well as the quality of communication work. He also assumed that people will not want to conduct searches anymore; they will want to know how to solve tasks and find the answer they are looking for immediately. David Michaelson (President, Echo Research Inc.) polarized the audience with his first statement – “five years from now, most of us will not be active in this industry anymore”. According to Michaelson, the reason for this is the predicted market entry of players with “deep pockets”, such as Factiva, Dow Jones or McKinsey. Only two types of evaluation service providers will survive: those who offer analyses with a higher degree of automation and those with a strong consulting approach. Brendan Swale (Executive Director, Product and Innovation – Media Monitors) presented an analysis of the industry, which divides the providers into four different categories.

Niche companies act slowly, but they offer insights and important findings to they clients. Small to average providers, which only offer descriptive analyses, will only be able to survive on the market for another two to five years. Both raw-material suppliers, which are capable of generating data in real time, as well as large companies, which are equipped with the necessary tools to conduct high-speed analyses with valuable findings and high user worth, have better chances on the market. Stuart Smith (Head of Corporate Practice, EMEA; Hill & Knowlton) is optimistic about the future of the industry as long as certain requirements are met.

An Euprera survey conducted in 2009 found that 40 per cent of those polled saw a higher demand for evaluation of results. 15 per cent noticed budget shifts from marketing communications to public relations. The most evident reason for this is the interest in PR and conversation that digital and social media sparked. In contrast to marketing, PR practices have become intensified by the economic recession. Research wins pitches, informs about new strategies and drives creativity. The presentation of data should, therefore, use new technologies as dull visualizations are not effective. Companies are sitting on real data mountains, but without communication experts’ calculations they will not reach any valuable findings. Stuart Smith also appealed to participants to get involved in training young PR talents.