Here’s a special PRmoment podcast from AMEC’s Global Summit in Prague: featuring PRmoment founder Ben Smith complete with an almost lost voice, Diageo’s Jim Alexander, AMEC chairman and CARMA CEO, Europe and the Americas Richard Bagnall and Mischief’s head of insight and strategy Gemma Moroney.

We talk through the three perspectives of PR’s measurement opportunity – the client's perspective, the measurement provider’s perspective and finally, the PR firm’s side of the story.

First up I talked to Diageo’s Jim Alexander.

Jim and I talk for about the first 18 minutes of the podcast and here is a flavour of what we discussed:

[00:00:58] Jim talks to us about where Diageo started its measurement journey and where it has got to now.

[00:01:17] How, two years ago Diageo's measurement processes was in "a very disparate place".

[00:02:08] Why each brand and each different specialism within Diageo’s marketing and comms had a different approach to measurement and analysis.

[00:02:21] Why one of the benefits of a large organisation with lots of different brands is that you can better hold them up next to each other to compare, learn and improve.

[00:02:56] How Diageo has used AMEC's Measurement Framework across its business.

[00:03:24] How the framework is used by everyone from Diageo's director of marketing Europe all the way through to account execs working in Diageo's PR agencies.

[00:03:31] How it can be challenging to get between 200-300 people to use Diageo’s Measurement Framework document.

[00:04:50] Whether Jim volunteered or got volunteered into the role of modernising and standardising Diageo measuring process.

[00:05:28] How did Jim tell people internally that some of the KPIs they had spent years reporting were actually worthless.

[00:05:37] Which KPIs did Diageo get rid of and which KPIs did it introduce.

[00:05:45] Why Diageo has only set output and outcome KPIs not impact ones.

[00:06:54] Why "opportunities to see" is Jim's "bad guy metric".

[00:08:37] How Diageo has built its own multi-channel metric methodology called "visibility" and Jim talks us through what this metric means.

[00:11:41] How did Jim approach the conversation with the senior internal stakeholders who for a number of years thought the comms effort had "all been going swimmingly" when in reality the true metric was minuscule in comparison?

[00:12:37] Why PR’s use of bizarre, unjustifiably large numbers in the past has been at the centre of its historic credibility problem – senior decision makers used to just "look straight through” these ridiculously big numbers.

[00:13:14] Jim explains why understands AMEC's campaign on the importance of getting good outcome and impact data, but adds that the "problem is getting that level of data is very difficult and often expensive".

[00:14:18] Why, for the evaluation debate to continue to move forwards, the key stakeholders are the senior in-house people – there's only so much agencies can do.

[00:14:56] From it a tool’s perspective how does Diegeo attempt to unify its measurement across the numerous different channels that PR operates across?

Next I talked to AMEC chairman and CARMA CEO, Europe and the Americas Richard Bagnal from about 18.20 mins to 34.35 mins.

Here are some of the highlights from that discussion:

[00:18:05] Where has PR as a sector got to in its measurement journey?

[00:19:10] Why AMECs Measurement Framework Process and the Measurement Maturity Mapper (M3) mean there are no more excuses for poor PR and comms measurement.

[00:21:00] How AMEC's Integrated Framework will help you measure reputation and your impact and sales, depending on your PR objectives.

[00:21:30] Why people wanting an easy answer is one of the key reasons people don't measure.

[00:21:40] Why there will never be a single PR measurement silver bullet.

[00:22:00] Why all good measurement processes begin with the questions "how does my PR role support the organisation that I work with" and "What is it that that organisation is looking for me to achieve with the communications program?"

[00:23:31] Richard talks us through AMEC's Integrated Evaluation Framework.

[00:26:07] Why the Integrated Framework is such a useful tool for PR agency people.

[00:27:00] Richard talks us through how AMEC's M3 Measurement Maturity Mapper can be used to benchmark your measurement processes against your competitors, according to sector and region, both for agencies and in-house.

[00:30:32] As PR has increased it's spectrum of channels – Richard talks us through the implications for PR's measurement.

[00:31:00] To what extent are AMEC's vendor members becoming resellers who can interpret data feeds from the different communication channels across social, broadcast, digital and print.

[00:33:28] Why measuring the stuff that matters means you will have to spend time thinking about what it is you’re trying to achieve at the beginning of the comms process.

And finally I spoke to Gemma Moroney, head of insight and strategy at Mischief.

Here is a summary of what Gemma and I discussed

[00:34:38] How a PR firm like Mischief helps its clients with their valuation.

[00:35:12] How Mischief adapted AMECs Measurement Framework to create the Mischief Measurement Framework.

[00:35:36] How Mischief uses its version of the measurement framework as a standard and then overlays it with client data and vendor data that may have been used historically.

[00:36:30] Why Mischief evaluates every campaign even if the client doesn't ask for it.

[00:36:50] What happens when a client doesn't give Mischief access to the data it needs?

[00:39:15] As a consumer PR firm, does Mischief attempt to isolate the impact of PR within measurement?

[00:39:38] What market mix modelling is, how Mischief has used it and whether it shows PR tends to work!.

[00:40:23] How the measurement of an “all agency” campaign can work.

[00:41:47] What Gemma sees as the number one problem in measurement.

[00:42:07] Why good measurement in consumer markets probably requires good integration in the client team and between agency partners.

[00:47:40] How Gemma moved from a "normal" PR" person to being a "head of insight".

[00:49:31] Why Gemma reckons the best PR people are a strategist and creative in one.

[00:50:13] Why PR firms need to get friendly with in-house data and insights people.

[00:53:25] How Gemma tries to get people within Mischief prioritising measurement.

[00:54:47] How better measurement and analytics can help support public relations in the procurement process.