PRWeek’s 2023 Measurement Conference: Tangerine’s Takeaway
Written by Ciaran Howley, INTEL Lead Strategist
Measurement may have been the title on the door of PR Week’s Measurement Conference, but it was in fact ‘AI’ that lingered on the lips of the delegates and speakers. Gathered to share their current concerns and future focuses, it was a fitting way to end a year that has been consumed by the excitement and fear of progressing technologies.
Here’s a look at the main topics of conversation at PR Week’s 2023 Measurement Conference:
Trust, But Verify…
The emergence of openly accessible, powerful and versatile systems opens a wealth of possibilities for savvy marketers, with many rushing to join prompt writing courses in order to arm themselves for the new age. However, considering AI’s inability to reach its potential and the creative nature of the human mind, good old critical thinking was highlighted as a key skill to harness over next 18 months.
Raising caution to the risks of AI, AMEC’s Johna Burke, encourages us to explore new possibilities, being open and creative, whilst carefully maintaining scepticism and vigilance. Urging us to ask pressing questions such as –
Do we truly comprehend open and closed AI systems?
Could we be potentially uploading confidential information to a worldwide learning model, making it accessible to anyone?
Do we understand how to train AI - how bias and methodology can warp findings?
Having clear and informed answers to these questions ensures we keep our most valuable commodity: credibility.
Disinformation, Misinformation and The Context Collapse
AI introduces a potential future that sees an abundance of incorrect and damaging information, continuously flooding audience’s news consumption. Arguably, highlighted Ex-UK Gov editor Marcus Beard, this is considered to not be a hugely dissimilar concept to the waves of awful journalism we’ve seen come from badly run organizations for years. Therefore, not necessarily a new threat, solely posed by AI.
Alternatively, what is new, is social media’s ability to amplify at frightening speed, requiring an adaptable, reactive and responsive strategy in order to keep pace. Beard identified a crucial moment, when deliberately shared false news – disinformation - transforms into shared information that is unknowingly inaccurate – misinformation.
Intercepting the information at this point is key, and requires strong social listening tools alongside a quick, reactive culture in order to isolate and respond. It is paramount to assess the risk to your business and build a resource and strategy that is scaled to fit.
AVE’ing a laugh?
Advertising Value Equivalency was met with a pantomime round of boos, setting the stage for a shift in focus for how we measure and value PR activity. Media Value is out.
Now, rather, senior representatives from multiple companies informed us that brand tracking was the best method to measure and communicate the impact of great PR work.
Many companies are transforming their approaches, with Mars’ Naomi Jones noting that 70% of their measurement framework is built on brand reputation - not just as a quarterly measure but run on a weekly basis and for every campaign. Developing their own model that runs channels in small pockets of isolation, they came to understand the effects of individual channels as part of a media mix.
And Burger King agrees. Soco Nunez de Cela encouraged that consistency is the key to tracking and building the right perspective and context. Rather than isolating individual spikes, you should understand what the pulse of conversation and sentiment is though the year. This also ensures that we follow up and sustain the perceptions we affect.
The general consensus was that we should build realistic goals. The dial on brand perceptions is not usually moved in one campaign over a month or two, hence, it is important to understand the long-term objective. You cannot kneejerk with unrealistic expectations.
Throughout the day, attendees and hosts reflected on how different the topics of this conference would have been 18 months ago. Taken aback with the rate and scale of change over the year, it was clear that the discussions centring around AI could not have been anticipated just a brief time ago.
Although a surprise, businesses have welcomed the wind in their sails. It was identified that, in spite of all unprecedented changes, discussions concerning measurement, evaluation, analysis, insight and impact are much easier across the business than they ever have been, recognising that more senior stakeholders are buying in to best practice and understanding the steps good work requires to inform their businesses for success.
We cannot wait to see what 2024 has to offer.
