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MPPR 750, Week #6

Measuring Trust and Mistrust inPublic Relationships

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Our text

• Katie Delahaye Paine - “for more than two decade, she has been helping companies measure their success and listen to their customers.”

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Comparing Media Relations to Other Disciplines• Pre and post survey for our class

– How many people are or have been involved in a media relations role?

• There is an increasing demand for results accountability– We’ll work on what the results actually are or mean – A tighter economy means more tightfisted ad spends

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MPPR 750, Week #6

What You Want at the End

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MPPR 750, Week #6

What NOT To Do

• Advertising Value Equivalencies– Applying the dollar cost of an ad space purchase to the amount of

earned media coverage achieved by public relations efforts– Problems:

• public relations and advertising and two entirely different disciplines designed to do things different ways

• There is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that a six-column inch ad has the same impact as a six-inch story in the same publication

– Which has more?• If you apply the same metric across all articles, you neglect to account for

the credibility of the placement or the reputation of the article• AVEs are based upon open rates and ad rates are often negotiated

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MPPR 750, Week #6

What NOT To Do

• Advertising Value Equivalencies– On average 10 to 20 percent of earned media coverage is

negative, yet most companies include this in their AVE coverage!• You would not run an ad saying “our company sucks”

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MPPR 750, Week #6

What TO Do

• Cost per impression or cost per 1,000 eyeballs– This is the standard in online, print and broadcast– Remember that CPM measures just reach, not message

penetration• It’s easy to compute: AVE - Total circulation stats of all outlets / total costs and expenses

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MPPR 750, Week #6

The AVE Math is Pretty Simple

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Better: Cost Per Message Communicated

• CPMC: based upon message impressions, rather than article impressions

• This is a good metric because only about 20 percent of public relations placements contain a key message.– Think about that: of all of the earned media that

organizations churn out, only one fifth of them contain key messages.

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Better: Cost Per Message Communicated

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Better: Cost Per Message Communicated

• Formula:

total opportunities to see a message = (number of key messages in article #1) x (circulation of article #1)(number of key messages in article #2) x (circulation of article #2)(number of key messages in article #3) x (circulation of article #3)

total PR costs / total opportunities to see a key message

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Measuring Trust and Mistrust

• Enron vs.. FedEx• When trust helps an organization build

relationships with key constituencies, it can save money through reduced costs of :– Litigation– Regulation– Legislations– Pressure (corporate) campaigns– Lost revenue from bad relationships

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MPPR 750, Week #6

What is Trust?

• A component of the quality of relationships1. Multilevel - interactions that span coworker, team,

organizational and interorganizational alliances2. Culturally-rooted - Norms, values and beliefs of the

organization - is it in the organization’s DNA?3. Communications-based - the outcome of

communications behaviors, like providing accurate information, explanation for decisions demonstration sincere and appropriate openness

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MPPR 750, Week #6

What is Trust?

• A component of the quality of relationships4. Dynamic - it changes as it cycles through business phases of

building destabilizations and dissolving - it’s important to measure over time

5. Multidimensional - multiple factors at the cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels, all of which affect an individual's perception of trust

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Reflexive Trust

• If you consistently obfuscate, lie and spin, at some point your very statements begin to enhance you competitor’s -- or enemy’s -- credibility.

• Examples?

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Measuring Trust - Grunig Relationship Survey

• Agree/disagree statements (Likert scale)1. I am happy with this organization.2. Whenever this organization makes an important decision, I

know it will be concerned about people like me.3. This organization can be relied upon to keep its promises.4. I believe that this organization takes the opinions of people

like me into account when making decisions.5. I feel very confident about this organization’s skills.

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Measurement Tools

1. In depth phone survey • Why is this #1?

2. Online surveys1. Low cost and quick turnaround2. What are the disadvantages?

3. Focus groups

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Setting Up Your Trust Measurement

1. Define your publics - who matters?2. Set specific measurable goals and objectives

• This is really hard

3. Select a measurement tool• Surveys• Focus groups• Before and after polls

4. Analyze the results

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MPPR 750, Week #6

More on Analyzing Results

1. Identify opposition to management goals or decisions before it becomes a crisis or develops into an issue.

2. Use your data to help management understand that certain decisions may have adverse consequences on public trust.

3. Set realistic expectations..your results might be invisible like avoiding lawsuits, strikes, protests

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MPPR 750, Week #6

Post-Lecture Survey

• How many of you who have been involved in a communications role have used:– One of these tactics– Two to four of these tactics– Five or more?