(Failing to) Bridge the divide

There are some gaps which will never be bridged – I am pretty sure there will never be a bridge from Russia to Alaska across the often sub-zero Bering Straight. There is also the divide between the ways that traditional and online media are measured. From talking to people in the industry at events like Measurement Camp it seems to be an issue on which a serious discussion and research need to be focussed.
At this point it seems illogical to cut to what I think might be the conclusion to this post ...that these media types are essentially so different that no metric can transcend and we might as well just get used to it and carry on life. If that’s your position then to be aware of the issue is probably enough. But I strongly believe that PR and marketing needs cross-media metrics, able to transcend the multitude of media channels. How can budgets be effectively divided, resources allocated and jobs given out if there is no comparative value associated with each type of media?
In the world of traditional media measurement audience data often underpins the gauging of impact. This is all nicely audited and is accepted as a dependable yardstick. But when you flip into the digital world those sort of figures don’t exist – in relative terms it’s the twilight-zone.
There are many more familiar with online metrics and I acknowledge its an area I should know more about but my view is new media is just so varied that any sort of sample audit can’t accurately encapsulate the real picture.
In the world of social media measurement there are loads of question marks and none bigger than cross media metrics - can you find an answer?

Measurement Camp ups the pace

Yesterday was the first of this years Measurement Camp monthly meetings, hosted this time by Econsultancy (Thanks Michelle and Aliya!). The 40 or so participants cover a vast cross-section of marketing specialisms, from PR, advertising, online and offline, direct and social media content producers. The breadth of interest and experience has to be unique, all to ponder the single issue of media measurement.

Some of the out-take I got was the overwhelming feeling that people needed to apply measurement to a massive selection of media outputs. Not only across the large number of social media platforms, but with the aim of generating a customised selection of results specific to their circumstances.

The instruments available make it possible to present many many different results sets. Clients don't want to be faced with 100 different metrics, and that is where Measurement Camp comes into its own. The format of the meetings are to take a real or imaginary media campaign and over a period of 2 hours present the best ways we can think of to measure it. The photo above shows our group presenting our finding to the rest.

Getting back to the out-takes; its clear that there will never be a single all-encompassing measure...a metric to to measure all social media; forget it. Through meaningful discussions and education on behalf of the agency, researchers and clients the hope is there should develop a confidence to pick on a couple of the metrics most appropriate. It will also help if examples of best-practice can be promoted as part of this education.

My final thought is on secrecy. There can be no use in agencies adopting a 'smoke and mirrors' approach to methodology. If it is not clear and transparent there can be no justification. I strongly believe that any efforts to cloak methodology will hinder the widespread adoption effective media measurement harming the evaluation agencies, confusing the clients as well as the media agencies.

When things turn down should we take to the water?

One of the benefits of Media Evaluation Research being based where it is are the pleasant sea views from the office. Over the last few days there has be a succession of rather impressive speed boats and gin palaces heading up towards the North Sea and we wondered if they are going up to the London Boat Show which starts early next month?

Either way, it is an interesting indication that there are still people with the money to spend on these things. Obviously the bankers have not been hit that badly! While the day job involves finding ways to measure the media I am continually amazed at the selection of meaningful measures out there pointing towards the truth. At the moment a good indication of the downturn are the relative absence of cranes from the city horizon, or the fewer number of recently registered cars.