1. PR Evaluation: Change, what change? Dr Tom Watson The Media School Bournemouth University, UK

2. Watson 1994 Research amongst IPR (UK) members in 1992: Practitioners viewed evaluation very narrowly and lacked confidence in promoting evaluation methods to employers and clients Most relied on output measurement of media coverage Evaluation was not undertaken because of a lack of time, budget and knowledge of methods Evaluation was feared because it could challenge the logic of practitioners’ advice and activities 75% claimed to do some form of evaluation Little spent on evaluation, with 74.3% spending 0 to 5% Picture of practitioner as a ‘doer’, not an adviser

3. Benchpoint 2009 Many similar results Continued marginal improvement 77% claim to measure Focus on Outputs; AVEs remain Very splintered methodology – no single method Little evidence of measurement of online media/activity Reduction in opinion research – why?

4. Research priorities - Watson 2008 Public relations’ contribution to strategic decision- making, strategy development and realisation, and efficient operation of organisations The value that public relations creates for organisations through building social capital and managing key relationships The measurement and evaluation of public relations both offline and online

5. Where next? Gregory & Watson 2008 There are many robust evaluation methods is existence – why is there a gap between academics and practitioners on this? There’s no agreement on what ROI is and whether it can be applied to PR/corpcomms. Research needed Dashboards and scoreboards are increasingly used in practice. Are they a presentation method or evidence of multiple methods used for evaluation? Is new applied theory needed on measurement of social media and online PR activity?