PPlusMeasurement challenges PR agencies on self-assessment
By Felicia Nwosu
PPlusMeasurement, a Media Intelligence agency, has criticized and challenged public relations agencies against the practice of auditing their own performance by themselves. They argued that such assessment should not be handled by the practitioners themselves but should be outsourced for more reliable and credible results, while urging them to engage the expertise of external media intelligence agencies to arrive at valid, objective, transparent and data-driven metrics.
“They cross the line when they start measuring and evaluating the impact of the work they do for their clients. As the saying goes, ‘you cannot be the accused, the judge and the jury in your own case’. You can’t create the message, communicate it, and finally, audit and evaluate. This is not in the best interest of the clients for so many reasons as such analysis would lack independence and objectivity,” PPlusMeasurement said.
The intelligence agency advised PR agencies to restrategise and explore new ways of measuring and evaluating their performance.
“The repetition of the same act and expecting different results is said to be a sign of insanity. Expecting a different outcome when the input is the same is ridiculous. Worse still, when we do the same thing over again and don’t know what the same outcome will be, we can only hope for the best. Public relations agencies have cross-channel expertise and their functions are constantly evolving, thus there are some tasks that should be completely outsourced. Media monitoring is a prime example. This is because PR agencies have too much control over their client’s media engagement.
“For efficiency, independence, fairness and objectivity, companies collaborate with media intelligence and audit partners to measure the efficiency and competitive performance of their media engagements. To understand the impact that a company or brand is making through its earned media profile, you really do need objectivity and impartiality. Media analysis is about giving the CEO meaningful intelligence and data-driven insights that he/she can act on, and this should not be undertaken by the very agency charged with generating this critical content.”
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