Globale Marktanalyse zur Medienbeobachtung - Interview mit Barry Leggetter, AMEC

By: AA, AZ / 31.07.08

Eine erste internationale Studie über den Markt der Medienbeobachtung und PR-Evaluation hat die Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) herausgegeben. Communicationcontrolling.de sprach mit Barry Leggetter, Executive Director von AMEC in London, über die Ergebnisse und zukünftige Trends in der Branche.

communicationcontrolling.de: Many service providers and agencies talk about evaluation nowadays. It's difficult to keep track of the market if you are a client. How does AMEC define the market and how did you conduct the study?

Barry Leggetter: AMEC defines media evaluation as a tool used to measure corporate or brand reputation. It has become an important and integral part of the planning, research and evaluation process used by PR practitioners. In practice, however, evaluation services can also be used by advertising and marketing agencies. The rationale behind the International Business Monitor initiative is to have a better understanding of the trends and size of evaluation worldwide. AMEC strongly believes that part of its function is to be seen to be an organisation leading the research, measurement and evaluation profession. We can only achieve that if we offer our members information not available elsewhere. The Business Monitor therefore becomes a critically important business planning tool to AMEC members. Our members took part in the International Business Monitor through an online questionnaire with the results only seen by an external research team in the interests of confidentiality. At the end of the study, each of our members received information which allowed them to compare and benchmark their company performance against the rest of the international industry.

communicationcontrolling.de: What are the main results?

Barry Leggetter: We had a 76% response rate from our members with representation in UK, Italy, Spain, Holland, Sweden, Australia, US, Middle East and Latin America. You will understand, I know, that the full results are confidential to Full Members of AMEC as an important member business benefit, but these are some of the interesting top line results:

• The international evaluation industry is worth in excess of £25 million– with increasing year on year growth rate since 2004
• The average “value” of evaluation work is also growing
• 34% of clients commission multi-country assignments, rising to 48% amongst AMEC members with a turnover of more than £1 million
• 84% of end clients include print media in their evaluation assignments
• The survey shows 83%of work is continuous client business with only 17% from ad hoc assignments
  

The overriding result is that the evaluation industry is growing in all international markets.

communicationcontrolling.de: How will the evaluation industry develop in the near future?

Barry Leggetter: I believe we are seeing the acceleration of a trend where more and more PCA’s (press cutting agencies) – especially in Europe - will be joining AMEC because they have expanded their business offer to now include evaluation and consultancy services. Interestingly we have an increasing number of members of FIBEP who have expanded out of their original media monitoring business to now offer evaluation.

communicationcontrolling.de: Many experts in Germany argue that analysis and consulting is growing. Does your study confirm this on an international level?

Barry Leggetter: Our International Business Monitor study shows year on year growth in the evaluation sector. What is also encouraging is that AMEC members are optimistic of continuing growth in the sector, with 47% of member companies stating they believed the evaluation industry will continue to grow in the next 12 months and a further 32% of members reporting they felt conditions would remain unchanged. The reason for our optimism for the future and the opportunity for further growth in the evaluation business on an international level is because so many corporate organisations and PR consultancies are still only using the basics of measurement - I will not even call it evaluation. It is rudimentary measurement. Corporations spend heavily on marketing campaigns, including PR. It always seems strange to us at AMEC that there is not a routine part of the budget allocated for evaluation. I gave a presentation recently to a group of PR Managers from charity and NonProfit organisations. It was clear that they generate an enormous number of cuttings.
However the theme of my presentation was that management teams are "time poor": they simply do not have the time to go through thick cuttings books. What today's manager wants to know are the key “intelligence threads”? What are the key messages that are being used? Who is speaking for the organisation and how are they rated? In other words, how do all the press cuttings currently being generated drive charity fundraising because if there is not a correlation, the PR is not working? It is also clear to me and brought home this week after a day of PR Awards judging, that the PR industry (in the UK at least) is still dependent on Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE's) as its primary source of measurement. The use of AVE’s is a cheap solution to the question: “how did we do?”, but it does not provide the real answers to that question.

communicationcontrolling.de: Are there any insights about new services? Will digital media monitoring, e. g. tracking social networks and video platforms, make a breakthrough during the next months?

Barry Leggetter: As well as educating the communications marketplace that I have already referred to, there is the undoubted opportunity within that to educate our clients – and prospective clients including PR consultancies – that digital communications can be measured. The Business Monitor confirmed we have much to do in this area with only 29% of clients including digital media in their assignments and only 5% specifying the measurement of social media.

About Barry Leggetter
Barry Leggetter is the British Executive Director of AMEC. He joined in October last year after a 30 year career in public relations in which he was Managing Director of the UK operations of three global PR networks, Fleishman-Hillard, GolinHarris and Porter Novelli. He is currently non-executive director of Bite Communications, a leading international technology PR firm.

About AMEC
AMEC stands for the international Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. It is the fast growing global trade body for companies in research, measurement and evaluation with 57% of members now outside UK and trend continues. Copies of the full International Business Monitor Report are available to non-members of AMEC priced at £1,500.

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