Review: 4th European Summit on Measurement 2012
The fourth annual convocation of media monitoring firms, analysis companies and PR experts at the European AMEC Summit on Measurement took place this year in Ireland. Nearly 200 participants from 29 different countries began the three-day conference in Dublin on June the 13th, 2012 with a workshop day. Over the course of seven workshops with high-ranking experts, including PR officers from corporations, scientists, PR consultants and leading media analysis specialists, the participants discussed various fields of interest.
Social Media Defines Industry Summit in Dublin
Already by the first day, the bedrock of discussion for this year’s industry convention had been laid: social media measurement would be the dominant theme of the congress. In this regard, the chief issues focused upon were the launch of an updated valid metrics framework for social media, the introduction of an approved transparency table to be used as a report methodology, and, finally, a new central repository announced for definitions and terms in social media measurement. Also discussed with regard to the future of social media measurement were the various models of data acquisition (Manuel Model, Free Tools Model, SAAS Model, Hybrid Model, Next Generation Model). Mazen Nahawi (President, News Group and President FIBEP) emphasised the necessity of making the step from the conventional Data Driven Model to the Engagement Driven Model, in order to make possible the detection of emotions, culture, prediction and interaction in real time. You can receive more information on the topic from the interview that I was able to conduct with him following the summit.
Appeal for a change of approach: Mazen Nahawi (President, News Group and President FIBEP). Photo © Paul Sherwood
At such functions, a glimpse into the future of media cannot help but take place. A top-class and internationally engaged panel discussed the developments taking place across different parts of the globe. Mirroring world-political events, there can be found here a north-south divide. The Arab Spring played a not inconsiderable role in driving the development of media diversity in its participating countries and other “southern” countries brazenly forward. While, in the northern industrial states, circulation rates of daily newspapers are dwindling, in North Africa, the Near East and Asia, as well as in South America, figures are escalating. In this respect, the explosive growth of social media users is not at all restricted to the industrial states. Addressing this circumstance is one of the demands that must be met for the mastery of big data.
„The Future of the Media” – a media debate: From left to right: Mazen Nahawi (President, News Group and President FIBEP), John Croll (CEO, Sentia Media), K C Brown (General Manager, Cision Global Analysts), Andy Brown – (Chairman, Kantar Media), Jeremy Thompson (Managing Director, Gorkana Group and Chair of AMEC’s Content Committee), Douglas McCabe (COO, Enders Analysis)
As in prior years, a further focus was laid upon linking the data of the output process with the data that results from the outcome. Dan Halliwell (Managing Director, Kantar Media Ireland) and Roger Jupp (Chairman, Millward Brown Ireland) discussed the steps involved in integrating media evaluation with traditional market research methods. The additional implementation of business insights also again played an important role. With the help of practical examples that sketched the ROI for companies such as, for example, Philips, one thing was made clear: social ROI is next. Altogether, participants could already enjoy a high proportion of practical examples on the very first day.
The Second Day: From Breakfast Workshop up to Conferral of AMEC Awards
The summit’s second day began with a new element for the delegates – a breakfast workshop. The positive response demonstrated that the idea was welcomed by the participants. In the workshop “Pro-active crisis management with the help of economic-psychological approaches”, Ingrid Moorkens (Head of Products and Development, AUSSCHNITT Medienbeobachtung) and Robert Fekl (Head of Media Analysis, AUSSCHNITT Medienbeobachtung) discussed how different models of attribution can be implemented in a media content analysis and what results such an analysis may deliver. Using the example of Toyota’s world-wide recall in 2010, the workshop showed how economic-psychological approaches in a media content analysis could support pro-active crisis management.
Robert Fekl (Head of Media Analyis, AUSSCHNITT Medienbeobachtung), Ingrid Moorkens (Head of Products and Development, AUSSCHNITT Medienbeobachtung). Photo © Paul Sherwood
With regard to the necessity of social media evaluation and the various practical approaches, the delegates received further insights from the following panels. Both Sandra Reape (Senior International Consumer Insight Manager, Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard) and Anna Kepka (Media Insight Director Europe & North America, Unilever) as well as Antonia Antonopoulos (Communication Specialist for Monitoring and Evaluation, Unicef) used the analyses of their service providers to demonstrate the importance of these results for the realisation of campaigns and the steering of their communication strategies. In addition to this, two spokespeople of global firms put their stamp on the subsequent debate. Rebecca Duffy (Senior PR Manager, Microsoft) presented the proprietary PRIME System (PR Insights and Measurement Effectiveness). Her most important recommendation for companies and organisations: stop spending PR budget on measurement that isn’t meaningful or valuable. Continue to evolve your current system to meet business needs. In addition, those responsible for PR should determine the relative importance to their own businesses of social media opinion makers versus the importance of traditional media. A business-specific determination of measurement criteria tailored specially for social media additionally offers a safeguard against the loss of time and budget. André Maning (Vice President, Global Head External Communications, Royal Philips Electronics) elucidated the globally implemented communications control system that was drafted by him and his team together with the commissioned service providers in recent years. The focus here was laid upon the construction of a so-called Net Promoter Score (NPS) that divides reportage into critical, neutral and recommendatory categories. In contrast with the previous year, this year’s conference participants received additional insights into the elements that have been further developed for binding output data that depicts the reception of the media/channels with results from the outcome level – the depiction of the reception among target groups – and the business results, which depict the influence upon a company, according to the Market Mix Modeling approach. According to Manning, one cannot view the results separately from one another if one hopes for an organisation to draw the right conclusions for a successful strategy. Figuratively put, his message runs thusly: “But all of this means that the communicator, the marketer and the research/analytics expert have to sit in a room together.”
André Manning (Vice President, Global Head External Communications, Royal Philips Electronics). Photo © Paul Sherwood
Melanie Brooks (Media and Communications Coordinator, CARE International) made us acquainted with the key challenges pertaining to media measurement for her global organisation. Aside from the difficulty of the name (CARE), these challengers are chiefly the cost and the time. Her questions for the auditorium revolved around the practicability of a media evaluation with standardised indicators for a globally positioned organisation such as CARE, as well as the issue of which indicators should be focused upon. Last but not least, Melania Brooks singled out an important point: can we do this successfully on a charity’s budget? Her concluding question for support in the drafting of a media evaluation was answered positively. In the party of André Manning (Philips), one of the previous speakers made himself available to support CARE International when it comes to this theme.
Melanie Brooks (Media and Communications Coordinator, CARE International). Photo © Paul Sherwood
Via video conference from the 2012 Games HQ in London, Jackie Brock-Doyle (Director of Communications and Public Affairs, London 2012 Organising Committee [LOCOG] for the Olympics and Paralympics Games) supplied insights into the communications strategy of the Olympic Games in London. She stunned the delegates with the revelation that her communications team decided quite early on to express the strategy for all of the delivery organisations for London 2012 upon a single slide. According to her expression, these will be the first twitter Olympics. At the Beijing Games in 2008, 300,000 tweets were being sent in a day. There will now be more than 1,100 times that number, with 340 million tweets and 140 million individual accounts.
The afternoon of the conference’s second day was dedicated to the Measurement Debate. This debate was opened in Dublin with a presentation of new international research from Chris Foster, Principal, Strategy & Organisation, Booz|Allen|Hamilton, and Grant McLaughlin, Vice President, Booz|Allen|Hamilton and leader in the firm’s Human Capital, Learning and Communications Center of Excellence. The AMEC additionally gathered together five global organisations from the industry for this debate: PRSA, IPR, ICCO, Public Relations Institute of Ireland and CIPR.
From left to right: David B. Rockland (Partner / CEO, Ketchum Pleon Change and Global Research), Richard Houghton (Immediate Past President, ICCO; Managing Director London & Partner, Aspect Consulting), Tim Marklein (Practice Leader, Technology & Analytics, W2O Group, Chair, #SMMStandards Coalition and Co-chair, Council of PR Firms Measurement Committee), Gerry Davis (Chief Executive, PRII), Mike Daniels (Chairman AMEC and Senior Consultant Report International), Christina Darnowski (Director Research & Project Management, PRSA). Photo © Paul Sherwood
In the late afternoon, the nearly 200 delegates from 29 nations were once again asked for their opinions. Following the prior year, in which the question was posed of which themes would move the industry in the coming years, now the focus was laid upon the (further) education of PR experts. An agreement was reached to initiate a global education program that would educate the PR market upon the importance of communications research and measurement. After the presentation of the themes, the summit participants chose those that were the most important for them:
- Help PR people establish business goals & objectives. 91%
- Provide clear definition of outputs, outcomes and business results. 82%
- Help PR people understand how C-Suite executives define business results. 73%
- Create an “industry” standard template for PR measurement. 71%
- Focus on developing and presenting case studies that demonstrates best practices. 68%
In addition to the early morning’s breakfast workshop, the AMEC also closed the evening with an innovation. In the tenth year of its existence, the AMEC communication effectiveness award was for the first time conferred upon the occasion of AMEC’s European Summit. The awarding of the prize, for which Kantar Media UK and SocialEyez counted as the night’s big winners, took place in style at the Guinness Storehouse.
Awarding of the AMEC communication effectiveness awards 2012. Photo © Paul Sherwood
Top Theme Defines the Third Day: Discussion of Standards in Social Media Measurement
The third day was again predominated by the top theme of this year’s summit. The group surrounding the moderator Richard Bagnall (Insights & Analytics Director, Gorkana Group and Chair of AMEC Social Media Measurement Group), featuring Philip Sheldrake (MCIPR CEng, founding partner, Meanwhile and Influence Crowd, and Main Board Director, Intellect), Tim Marklein (Practice Leader, Technology & Analytics, W20 Group, Chair, #SMMStandards Coalition and Co-chair, Council of PR Firms Measurement Committee), Katie Paine (Founder and CEO, KDPaine & Partners LLC) and Don Batholomew (Senior Vice President, Digital & Social Media Research, Ketchum), addressed the definitions and processes of change in the measurement of social media for PR work and for other branches. In this regard, Katie Paine and Tim Marklein presented the results of the #SMMStandards ‘coalition’ and discussed with the delegates the definitions and guidelines for standardisation in the fields Content Sourcing and Methods, Reach, Engagement, Influence, Advocacy and ROI. Additionally, they exhorted the representatives of evaluations firms to use the so-called Transparency Table in the future for evaluating the methods used. You can receive more impressions and outlooks from the interview that I was able to conduct with Katie Paine in Dublin.
Katie Paine (Founder and CEO, KDPaine & Partners LLC). Photo © Paul Sherwood
By the end of the summit it was clear that the theme of education and further education plays an important role for the AMEC. Every industry has its own particular language. The field of media analysis, in this regard, is no exception. In the meanwhile, AMEC has placed a glossary online, for which comments and collaboration are hoped.
Barry Leggetter (Executive Director, AMEC and Summit Director). Photo © Paul Sherwood
After three days, Barry Leggetter (Executive Director AMEC) offered a positive summary of the fourth European summit in Dublin. More information about the summit follows in the interview I conducted with him.
About Robert Fekl
Robert Fekl is the Head of Media Analysis at AUSSCHNITT Medienbeobachtung in Berlin, and takes a look back at the European industry meeting in Dublin as a participant in the summit.
Introduction to AMEC
The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) is the fast-growing global trade body and professional institute for agencies and practitioners who provide media evaluation and communication research. It has grown into a trade body whose purpose is to define and develop the industry on an international scale with better professional standards for both companies and individuals. AMEC now has members in 38 countries.
The AMEC logo is regarded as an international mark of excellence in the provision of media evaluation and communication research services to clients. All the leading companies in the industry now carry this hallmark thus satisfying AMEC’s founding strategic objectives.
AMEC provides a number of key business benefits to its members, who are bound by a Code of Practice to maintain the highest standards of professionalism. Increasingly AMEC’s approach is through Knowledge Share, as demonstrated by its new Knowledge Share website with content sourced from around the world and a Video Library of clips from the European Summit 2010 and the “Big Ask” social media measurement conference held in London. The KS site also has IPR White Papers and other reports from around the world.
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