‘Don’t forget the fundamentals of communication measurement’

exchange4media’s 13^th edition of the India Public Relations and Corporate Communications Conference in New Delhi on Friday provided a glimpse into the inner workings of the media and communications industry, even as thought leaders from across the field shared their valuable insights and expertise on a myriad of topics.

Delivering a keynote address was Aseem Sood, CEO, Impact Research & Measurement Pvt. Ltd. and Chairman, AMEC, who began his short but impactful address by noting that while the day’s conversations and debates had circled back and forth between generative AI and other emergent technologies, he was there to talk about fundamentals and the importance of fundamentals.

 “The case that I'm going to try and make is it's great to adopt new technologies, but please don't forget the fundamentals that we have. And to do that, I'm going to take an example, which is something called Barcelona principles,” he said.

It was in 2010 that about 165 professionals from all over the world, representing public relations firms, measurement companies like Impact, consulting firms, and others got together, recalled Sood, and said, ‘if you look at Chartered Accountants, customer work accountants, management consultants, everybody has certain principles that the industry abides by. So why is it that in the communications measurement world, we don't have any principles?’

“So, it was in 2010, in the city of Barcelona, and over a period of three days, we identified certain principles, and said if you want to operate in the measurement world, you must comply with these principles as a as a supplier (as we are providing services) or as a consumer, on the corporate side, if you're doing measurement work, you must comply with these principles,” he said.

Noting that there were seven Barcelona principles, Sood said he’d only explain the first, in order to make his case, while encouraging his audience to go back and read up on the principles, adding, “In the communications measurement world, we believe if your campaign complies with these seven principles, then the probability of your program succeeding is much, much higher compared to if you are not complying with these principles.”

“The first principle is about setting measurable goals and the importance of setting measurable goals. In India especially one of the criticisms that we have to Barcelona principles is that people read the principles and say they are so basic,” he said, adding, “Like if you read this principle, it says setting measurable goals is an absolute prerequisite to communication planning, measurement and evaluation and all of you will say it's so simple this is exactly what it needs to be. But you will be surprised when you enter the real world and realize that this is one principle, which has caused the failure of the maximum number of campaigns.”

“We've worked with a lot of clients and not every client wants to spend a lot of money. So they say, Dear Impact, you offer us monitoring services, and you give us those glossy technologies and tools and we’ll do measurement on our own. These are the same tools that are sold by us and have bought successful campaigns to our clients. But they say no, no, we don't want your help on the measurement side. Just do this basic monitoring for us and give us the toolkit, we'll do it ourselves,” he explained.

As it turned out a lot of these clients came back later and said somehow, their campaigns are not successful or they're not giving the results that were wanted. And as Sood and his team went back to consult with them and try and figure out what was lacking, they came to a surprising realization.

Up to 65% of the time, the clients, all members of the same team, had different objectives in mind when it came to a particular campaign and this lack of clarity between them is what was impeding the success, or perception of success, of those campaigns for those clients.

“So we believe if you want to have a measurable objective, what you need to do is you need to have four elements in every goal. Who are you trying to target with the campaign that you have? What are you trying to change in his behavior or knowledge? By how much do you want to change it? And when do you want to achieve it? If these four elements are there in the way you're articulating the goals of your campaign, there is a higher probability that this campaign will be successful.”

Concluding his talk, Sood said, “I will consider my talk successful, if all of you go back and try and read about Barcelona principles. And also try and check if the communication program that you're running is complying with Barcelona principles. And I can promise you that as soon as you reach that stage, the probability of that campaign succeeding is going to be far higher.”