Evaluating PR effects
UK public relations practice, and the need for new effectiveness models
Tom Watson
This article describes the sometimes primitive evaluation methods that have set PR activity in Britain apart from other (and more lavishly researched) elements in the communications mix. While a substantial corpus of respectable theory and new practice has evolved in the US, the UK has clung to ideas like counting column inches, and expressing these in terms of 'free advertising'. Noting the profound obstacles to a new objectives-based professionalism - eg short-termism, no client money for research - the author identifies practical ways...