Media Evaluation: November 2006

The Value of Awards – Part III

So was all that effort worth it? The answer: definitely. The AMEC awards dinner was a success both in terms of the event itself, but also in recognising the excellent work being done across the industry by all member organisations.

As a company we won a record number of awards this year and feel very proud to have had our work recognised in this way. Thank you to all our clients who helped to put the award submissions together and we look forward to further developing our projects to ensure that we continue to deliver award winning evaluation.

So what were the highlights of the evening? Apart from the obvious collection of awards, for me personally it has to be helping Katie Paine find the girl with the ruby shoes…although it sounds difficult, and a rather bizarre undertaking, they did belong to the person sat next to me at the dinner. My reward for this was to be whisked around the dance floor by Ms Paine who noted that the Brits seem to be losing much of their famed reserve. I suggest that the hearty toasting of success may have played some part in this. I look forward to reading her take on the evening at http://kdpaine.blogs.com/. Hopefully the picture she took of the shoes will make it to a wider audience.

So we shall be back next year, ready to again challenge the best of the measurement industry, and hoping that our wall will be able to take the additional weight of more awards.

The Future of New Media

And so the great and the good from the evaluation community descended on Portland Place for the second in a continuing series of AMEC lectures.

Two speakers gave their insights into the latest trends in social media. Philip Young from the University of Sunderland kicked the proceedings off with an interesting race through all the different social media that is out there, and how they effect the reputation of organisations and individuals. Blogging is one area (obviously) close to my heart, and whilst I would like to think that it has an impact on the thinking of others - from an evaluation angle it is difficult to measure true influence against the traditional media. Ultimately our clients often want to know how far away are we from being able to quantify the impact of a blog compared to the power of the FT? (Philip - perhaps you can let me know what you think, as I know you will be checking out my comments on your performance).

Philip finished by asking the audience to help him in looking at the trends in the use and experience of social media by taking part in an online survey....so please visit www.euroblog2007.org/survey.

Our second speaker was Kevin Murray, Chairman of the Bell Pottinger Group. Dipping into his extensive experience Kevin ultimately threw down the challenge to the evaluation industry to step up and develop innovative approaches, particularly in respect of the new communication landscape, to help his companies prove to their clients how their activities are improving reputation.

We already deliver much of what Kevin was asking evaluation companies to provide, including the interpretation of findings beyond face value, the recognising of the key influencers and the emphasis on takeouts rather than message inputs. We look forward to continuing our work with Bell Pottinger!

Act of goodwill or PR stunt?

With the news this morning that Sainsbury's are to donate 25% of the value to those that lost their Christmas savings at Farepak we have been considering the motivation behind this generous offer.

In these days of a cynical public and, perhaps, an even more cynical press, will the offer be viewed as an opportunity to hitch a ride on a bandwagon promoting the 'caring' credentials of this recovering consumer giant. In our limited office qualitative survey (myself and one colleague!) we believe and hope that this is not the case.

There is an obvious battle among the supermarkets to position themselves as the most ethical, and even if this is only being undertaken to win market share why should we care, for ultimately we should all benefit. Let us hope that this latest salvo from Sainsbury's motivates their competitors to make similar offers and that we will be able to evaluate the media response in the run up to Christmas, but more importantly it will deliver a better Christmas to all those that have seen their careful budgeting come to nothing.