I was lucky enough to be asked to attend AMECs recent conference in Barcelona. Very nice it was too. As ever with these events, some of the more interesting revelations were discovered away from the conference hall in the informal networking (drinking) sessions after the conference. I’m no media evaluation expert, but here are a few thoughts on the future of the sector...  1.  Media evaluation needs to rebrand Media evaluation. It hardly sounds thrilling does it? Imagine calling a Director of Comms, or a CEO and saying " we are a media evaluation company, we need talk.” I don’t reckon you’d get through the PA. Now try this: “Hi CEO, I’m from a Reputational Risk Consultancy and I have identified some serious touch points which I believe could wipe millions off your balance sheet.” Believe me, they would take your call. Well you’d have a better chance anyway. What’s my point? Media evaluation is underselling itself. It’s not (just) about media evaluation any more, it’s about stakeholder analysis and linking this to stakeholder actions. It obviously includes print, online, broadcast and social media. The phrase 'media evaluation' has olde-worlde connotations and suggests you’re only looking at the coverage, not the actions. This need not be the case. 2. How reputation risk helps the banks I sat next to a bearded, charming Icelandic fellow at the dinner called Samuel. He was a finance guy at heart; his boss had just bought a media evaluation company and had instructed him to attend the conference to find out what it was all about. He wasn’t a shy chap and proclaimed: “They’ve got it all wrong” my ears obviously pricked up, “it’s all about risk.” “Well yes”, I said and talked a bit about my thoughts above. “No”, said Samuel: “You’ve got it wrong too!” His point was that the big money to be made in media evaluation is in helping banks establish risk. Media evaluation companies can help the banks to gather information about what consumers are saying about their business customers in the media, be that print, online or social. This enables the bank to more easily manage the financial risk of its business clients. So if a business brings out a poor product, no longer can it tell the bank it’s a great product, because the bank can see through its media analysis that it’s getting ripped to pieces on Twitter. Good idea I thought.  3.  This insurance of reputation I can also confirm that at least one UK-based media evaluation firm has been approached by insurers to see if it is possible to put a value (and therefore a price) on the impact of a media crisis on a company’s share price. This cost is likely to differ for different sectors and obviously by company size. But by working with media evaluation companies the insurer plans to produce a formula that produces a risk score, and therefore enables the insurer to put a price on insuring the company’s reputation. Interesting stuff. PRmoment.com is told that these discussions are at an early stage.