Adobe, McDonald's and the Barcelona Principles – How to measure what matters
A guide from Nasdaq Corporate Solutions and Ragan Communications details some of the ways professionals are proving their worth to their organizations. In addition to that they provide useful leads for example on how setting clear objectives, measuring with Google Analytics, surveying stakeholders, comparing PR efforts against sales and how to go beyond the share of voice. Furthermore Ardi Kolah, author of „High Impact Marketing That Gets Results”, recommends several ways to apply the Barcelona Principles in a piece and how using them practically. Last but not least the whitepaper offers practical advice and case studies from Adobe, McDonald’s USA and Roche on how they measure PR success. We summarized the most important aspects for you below.
Adobe's Social Listening Tool „Adobe Digital Index“ (ADI)
„The media landscape is changing“, Maria Poveromo, senior director of communications at Adobe says. „After years of downsizing, reporters are under tremendous pressure […]. So the company is trying to help journalists tell relevant stories, rather than plug its brand.“ The company creates its Digital Index reports by analyzing anonymous, aggregated data from brands that use Adobe Marketing Cloud. Adobe uses the trillions of megabytes of information on its servers to predict trends in marketing, retail, mobile use, social media, video, and other areas. Once a report is prepared, PR offers sneak previews to high-priority media outlets. The PR effort generated hundreds of articles and broadcast pieces last year, including Reuters, Forbes, the Financial Times, and Mashable. Econometric modeling is helping Adobe to measure this success and to demonstrate how PR drives sales. Econometrics weighs both broad and macro trends (recessions, wars) and variables such as marketing programs, pricing and economic indicators. „In the business-to-business world, there is a two-stage sales funnel“, Poveromo says. „At the beginning, PR and marketing drive leads into the top of the funnel. But PR and marketing can also help increase deal size and reduce the time to close deals. We built a two-stage model that yields a measurable positive correlation of PR impact on lead generation,” Poveromo says. „It also shows an even stronger correlation of PR activity to deal closure.” Adobe once had different teams measuring what interested them. Now there is a centralized marketing research group seeking to standardize measurement within Adobe. Econometrics helps provide that consistency.
McDonald's USA: How to tie communications to the bottom line
In contrast to Adobe the fast food giant McDonald's uses a classical approach considering the Barcelona Principles. „The Barcelona Declaration and the Institute of Public Relations have called for new standards in measurement“, says McKenna-Jandrain, director of public relations at McDonald’s USA. „Standards foster a common language for comparison and promise increased reliability, efficiency, and innovation. This is because the focus is on outcomes, McKenna-Jandrain says, „We want to tell a simple story – that is, to show that a campaign has increased effective earned media coverage and story sharing by X percent, which increased awareness, positive brand perceptions, and advocacy by Y percent and therefore contributed to a Z percent increase in restaurant visits for those who were aware of messaging. McDonald’s rates media stories and mentions from one to three points on a three-part “media analysis framework” scale:
Outlet: How relevant are the outlets to the audience? The outlets are rated from tier one through three.
Visibility: What is the potential reach of each outlet? They are rated for potential reach, from above average to below average.
Story type: What is being said about the brand or product? Does it deliver emotional benefits (three points), rational benefits (two), or merely mention the product or brand (one).
To go beyond such numbers, McDonald’s also surveys before-and-after campaigns, asking whether buyers were swayed positively, how a sample of influencers felt because of the campaign, and whether they were more likely to buy the product. The surveys examine what medium led them to buy or advocate for the product.
For more Information you can download the guide here.
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