Posts Tagged ‘print media’


Multipliers: A Way to Establish Correlations Between Audited Circulation and Readership Or Just Fluff?

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

by Carol Holden*

Ever since taking over the reins of the BurrellesLuce Media Measurement department, more years ago than I wish to claim, I have heard a persistent question from clients: “What is an accurate multiplier to use with the audited circulation for print media to give a more realistic readership measure.” “Isn’t there an overall industry standard to use?” It came up again as recently as this week.

Obviously the question is asked because many publications are passed around the household or office, and are available in every waiting room space in America.  And I have heard multipliers tossed about, anywhere from two to as much as seven, with little substantiation as to how the number was derived.

Our response to this question has always been that we do not recommend any multipliers because we have not found data to support any overall numbers that would equate to all newspapers, large or small, daily or non-daily. The same feeling holds true for magazines.

However, there is some research on the topic this month, produced by Scarborough Research and the Newspaper National Network, working to

Multipliers: A Way to

Flickr Image: atomicjeep

establish correlations between circulation (audited) and readership.

The examination of the two metrics was done using 25 major daily printed newspapers – although not all were in the top 25 – ranked by total circulation as reported in the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The following are some of the conclusions the study draws:

  • Readership and circulation are highly correlated and have been moving in the same direction over time.
  • Readership is decreasing at a slower rate than circulation.
  • The analysis found that Readers-Per-Copy is increasing.
  • The readership metric facilitates apples to apples comparisons with other media, which rely on audience estimates.

Although I found the report interesting, I would still be hesitant to make recommendations to a client who wished to add a multiplier because:

  • I would not feel comfortable using the findings from this type of report outside of the specific 25 newspaper media universe studied, such as applying the multipliers to smaller daily or non-daily newspapers.
  • Because readership/circulation illustrates “opportunities to see” rather than eyeballs, I would be wary of advising a client to make an apples to apples comparison to other media that rely on audience/visitor estimates.
  • The New York Times reported on April 26, 2010 that: “In the six-month period ending March 31, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported Sunday sales dropping 6.5 percent and weekday sales 8.7 percent compared with the same six-month period a year ago. The figures are based on reports filed by hundreds of individual papers.” With the landscape changing so quickly, how long would multipliers even for the subset of 25 newspapers analyzed be valid?

What methods do you use to judge the reach of campaigns in print media? Do you incorporate any type of multipliers in your data and if so how did you come up with them and support them going forward. Are there any other “fuzzy” numbers that you use? And for those not using multipliers, how are you qualifying those opportunities to see? How are you distinguishing them from circulation and eyeballs? Please share your thoughts and experience with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

***

Bio: I’ve been in the media business all of my adult life, first in newspapers before going full circle and joining BurrellesLuce, where I now direct the Media Measurement department. I’ve always enjoyed meeting and especially listening to the needs of our customers and others in the public relations and communications fields; I welcome sharing ideas through the Fresh Ideas blog. One of my professional passions is providing the type of service to a client that makes them respond, “atta girl” – inspiring our entire team to keep striving to be the best. Although I have been lucky enough to travel through much of Asia and most major U.S. cities for business or pleasure, my free time is now spent with my daughter, visiting family/friends, and of course the Jersey shore. Twitter: @domeasurement LinkedIn: Carol Holden Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Media Measurement, Public Relations | 2 Comments »

Taking A Step Back: Reflecting On Your PR Career

Monday, April 26th, 2010

by Colleen Flood*

I received an email from my cousin Maureen last week requesting a favor.  Her girls, my first cousins once removed and who happen to be triplets, are working on a Girl Scout project related to public relations. Maureen, the leader of the troop, asked if I could provide some information to them about my job at BurrellesLuce and public relations in general. Any information I could provide would be a starting point for them to understand the industry.  Then, on their own, they would do further research in order to complete the project, such as obtaining

Flickr Image: HckySo

Flickr Image: HckySo

press releases, creating a press kit, role-playing how to handle bad publicity, creating a sales pitch, being a spokesperson for a non-profit, using technology, etc.

Naturally I thought this was great! My 13 year old cousins are learning about the PR industry, a field many adults don’t even grasp. David Mullen addressed this in his blog “How Do You Explain PR to People?” He states:

“I help companies communicate with people – customers, employees, legislators. And with you! If you’ve read a story in a newspaper or on CNN.com on a new product, a PR pro shared that with the reporter and lined up the interviews. If you see a business leader delivering a speech, a PR pro probably wrote it. If you happen across a really cool event in Bryant Park, a PR pro likely played a major part in the idea behind it. We work with executives to figure out the smartest, most effective ways to engage with people, let them know what’s going on with the company, and get their thoughts and feedback.”  

A great explanation from David, but my cousins had more questions… As I began to answer the list they sent me, I also reflected on my own career.  How I got into it, what I love about it, and how much experience I have gained over the years. I have included a few samples of the questions (and my answers) which I really enjoyed thinking about.

1.  What is your favorite part of your job? My favorite part is helping my clients do their job better. Also, attending social events is fun, too, and I have even met a few famous journalists. I attended a luncheon with Katie Couric! I also belong to professional organizations such as New York Women in Communications, The Public Relations Society of America, and The Publicity Club of New York.

2.  What type of training and experience did you need?  Since I work with clients in the public relations industry, I need to have an understanding of media and journalism. I was also trained on how my company monitors the media – for print and online news and magazine articles, social media, video and blogs, and more. 

3.  Do you still learn on the job?  Yes, especially now since media is changing and incorporating both traditional print media and online media.

4.  What type of companies does your company work for? Describe your customers. My company works with anyone or any company who needs to know where and when they are mentioned in the media. I specifically work with public relations agencies. These are firms who do PR for clients who hire them. They often specialize in a certain industry like fashion, beauty, toys or travel. My specific clients are located in New York City and New Jersey.

5.  What is the most interesting thing that you’ve learned or done in your job? There are so many interesting things I have done and learned during my career. I have been able to travel to meet clients, attend networking functions (one I went to was on board the U.S.S. Intrepid in San Diego!) It has also been rewarding to manage, train, and mentor others on all I have learned throughout my career. I enjoy the fact that I work with smaller clients, as well as  with big name clients and can build personal relationships with both. 

6.  How do you use technology in your job?  I think the coolest technology we use is this system that scans thousands of newspapers and magazines to find client product names or keywords. However, we still use humans to make sure the keyword is really what the client is looking for. We also use technology to deliver results to our clients.

7.  What are you most proud of in your career?  The loyal, strong relationships I have made with my clients.  

How would you answer these questions about your career? 

***

*Bio: Colleen Flood has been a sales consultant with BurrellesLuce for over 12 years and is eager to become a more integrated part of the social-public relations community. She primarily handles agency relations in the New York and New Jersey metro-area. She is not only passionate about work, but also about family, friends, and the Jersey Shore. Twitter: @cgflood LinkedIn: Colleen Flood Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Career Advice, Client Services, Media Industry, Media Monitoring, Public Relations | 3 Comments »

The World Is A Giant Barcode And We Just Live In It

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

by Lauren Shapiro*

The World is a Giant Barcode

Flickr Image: Jaume d'Urgell

The retail industry depends on barcodes to identify a particular item of clothing, providing information as specific as the size and color of the item. In grocery stores, barcodes are also used to identify products and have evolved to create the world of “self check out” where the scanning process is supposedly very easy. (Although I can never get through the lane without the light flashing and the computer telling me to “Please wait, someone will be over to assist you momentarily.”) 

Barcodes are even starting to influence the current trend in today’s cell phone technology. Blackberry users can attest to the ease of the barcode feature recently introduced in the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) 5.0 upgrade. The barcode allows users to exchange BBM pins using the phone’s camera lens as a scanning tool. The barcode acts like a personal identification code that provides a fast and efficient way for users to exchange contact information. BBM users no longer have to worry about mistyping a pin code since the computer inputs the data automatically.

In the U.S., this technology is the latest and greatest (Target’s use of mobile coupons is another recent example). In Japan, however, they have been there, done that, and perfected it. In fact, barcode scanning is the norm in the Japanese cellular phone culture with even, according to a New York Times article, McDonald’s printing nutritional barcodes on the packaging of their food. McDonald’s patrons can scan the barcode on their cell phones to view the nutritional facts. Cell phone users can also scan barcodes on billboards to access promotions among many other things.

Facebook may be working on creating a similar feature for smart phones in the U.S. The barcode would act similar to that found in BBM, but on a much grander scale. By scanning the barcode, the user gains access to your profile (with no greater access than one would gain by manually searching for your profile on the site). According to mainstreet.com author, Seth Fiegerman, “The trick is that one can create a Facebook Quick Response (QR) barcode and print it on their business card, photo or T-shirt to have people scan it and access one’s Facebook profile instantly.” (Originally cited from NowPublic.)

Barcode scanning could be the newest way to integrate social media and standard media by printing the bar code for a Facebook fan page onto print catalogues, brochures or advertisements. With the utilization of different barcodes for different traditional outlets, PR professionals could use the Facebook QR barcode to evaluate print marketing, observe which outlet their demographic utilizes the most to access their fan page and allocate expenses accordingly. Although these opportunities may not present themselves on Facebook for another few years (or less.. who knows), the objective is clear – barcode scanning is the future of cellular phone technology and it will affect the way we do PR.

What advantages or disadvantages could barcode scanning present in the world of public relations? Would the introduction of barcodes breathe new life into traditional print marketing? Are you currently considering or have already adopted this technology in your communications strategy? Please share your thoughts with the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas. 

 

*Bio: Soon after graduating from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, in 2006 with a B.A. in communication and a B.S. in business/marketing, I joined the BurrellesLuce client services team. In 2008, I completed my master’s degree in corporate and organizational communications and now work as the supervisor of BurrellesLuce Express client services. I am passionate about researching and understanding the role of email in shaping relationships from a client relation/service standpoint as well as how miscommunication occurs within email, which was the topic of my thesis. Through my posts on Fresh Ideas, I hope to educate and stimulate thoughtful discussions about corporate communications and client relations, further my own knowledge on this subject area, as well as continue to hone my skills as a communicator. Twitter: @_LaurenShapiro_ LinkedIn: laurenrshapiro Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Advertising/Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Technology | 7 Comments »

Google Alerts and AP Coverage of Samantha Critchell: A BurrellesLuce Experiment

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

by Stephen Lawrence*

Flickr Image: ClickyKBD

Flickr Image: ClickyKBD

To follow up on my previous post regarding Google’s (non)-coverage of Associated Press content, I opted to take a more controlled approach for this submission.

In other words, I let other people do the leg work for me.

A Google Alert was set up with the specific instructions: “author: Samantha Critchell.”  This would, of course, only return articles attributed to that name.  Why Samantha Critchell?  She’s a leading AP writer covering topics relevant to the cosmetics and fashion industry.  And, as we know, with the AP’s arching distribution of content, brand placement in her work would reach a very wide and diverse potential consumer readership.

Internally, we set up an order to monitor U.S. papers for Associated Press articles penned by Samantha Critchell, which I would monitor.

During a two week period (Jan. 19 – Feb. 2), Google alerted my email inbox 16 times with a total of 20 article links.  In this window, Ms. Critchell penned nine major articles ranging from a Golden Globes fashion round-up and a primer on facial mask products, to a feature on Vera Wang’s figure skating designs for previous Winter Olympic events.

The Alerts broke down as follows:

  • Four of the articles were from ABC News.com, which fell outside of my print coverage experiment
  • Three more were from the Canadian press, which also fell outside of parameters of the U.S. press.
  • Of the remaining 13 domestic newspapers, our readers located the same articles from 11 of their print editions.
  • Regarding that missing duo, one was from a paper which we have simply not yet received as of this time.  While the other, seems to not have published the article in its print edition.  Point goes to Google.

Last week, Yahoo and the Associated Press announced their own licensing agreement to allow the stream of AP content to Yahoo’s sites.  So, to add some additional gist to the topic, I ran a search through Yahoo News with the same subject and date parameters. 

The resulting hits were from eight newspapers and a single website.  Those are fewer results than the totals from Google.

  • Surprisingly, none of the Yahoo! News results corresponded to those of Google News.
  • Four of the eight newspapers articles were found in the print editions by BurrellesLuce readers.
  • Three of the articles did not appear in the print editions of the publications and another article originates from an edition which we have not yet received. Points again to Yahoo.

On the other side of the coin, our BurrellesLuce readers located articles credited to Ms. Critchell in an additional 114 papers published during the same two week period. 

That’s a ten to one loss in coverage for Google. Perhaps this can chiefly be attributed to the search giant’s ongoing wrangling with the Associated Press over compensation, (never mind that it doesn’t cover paid or subscription based sources). Even with the agreement between Yahoo News and the AP, how can the discrepancy in sources and numbers be explained?  And in either case, how might such a potential loss affect your clients in the interim?

*Bio: A native of Mesa, Arizona, I graduated from the University of Arizona with a major in Near Eastern Studies. I began my career with BurrellesLuce in 1997 as a reader. As with most readers, I developed a special relationship with my assigned papers – those small town dailies and weeklies of the same flavor that my family had been employed in for two generations. Currently, I hold the position of quality assurance specialist, troubleshooting daily production issues. Outside interests include woodworking, and keeping my wife and dog happy. Twitter: BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Media Industry, News Coverage, Public Relations, Technology | 2 Comments »

Print vs. Online: The Same and Different

Monday, October 19th, 2009
Flickr Image: mtsofan

Flickr Image: mtsofan

by Stephen Lawrence*
Here’s a question I’ve been pursuing since this summer: “To what extent is the printed content of a newspaper duplicated on that paper’s website?”

The simple approach I’ve adopted is to compare the articles that our BurrellesLuce readers have accepted for our client’s search terms against whatever content I can locate on the corresponding website for that particular publication. In other words, I conduct a classic apples-to-apples comparison.  And, being that our clips are digitized it’s simple enough to gather up the necessary data in preparation for this task.

What’s not so easy is navigating the sites themselves… An original story is much more likely to be found on any paper’s website, while syndicated material (from news to lifestyle to sports) are much less so. And calendar/event listings from the print edition?  Good luck finding them online, particularly if the content is hidden in the archives.

A surprising number of papers – typically smaller dailies or weeklies – don’t have websites; if they do, they only link to local portals. Their original printed content is simply unavailable in the 2.0 version. Is that really a great loss?  The NNA, along with the Missouri School of Journalism, has recently reported, “Eighty percent of America’s newspapers have a circulation of 15,000 or less and that nearly 75 percent of those who read small papers actually read them in their entirety.” But, those local placements won’t be found by any spidering bots or trolling indexers. Only by those loyal local readers who tend to keep those papers around for a week.

Now, if you’ve kept with me this far, here’s a colorful anecdote that I’d like to share: 

While checking a Top 50 DMA newpaper’s site against our clips, I kept drawing blanks for a single article. None of the search words were returning anything from the site that resembled what appeared in the print edition.  This was an original story, A Father’s Day Gift Guide to be precise. Then I entered the article’s title into the search engine and, viola, a good link kicked me straight to the …. story? 

Not exactly.

The site had, for whatever reason, reproduced the title and the first two paragraphs of the article on the web, but the remainder of the article wasn’t there. Hence my missing search words. So, what had happened to the rest of this article?  It had been linked to the page as a JPEG image. In essence the entire printed page was scanned and slapped onto the web as a graphic.  There were no tags, no metadata, or anything to distinguish this lost little page.

Why does this all matter? Depending on how you target your stakeholders you must take into account how the online and print content is different. If you have a regional public relations campaign you can no longer assume what ran in the print edition also reached an online audience. How does the content of your local sites and papers compare? How would you report on the example provided where the partial article appeared with the JPEG link?

*Bio: A native of Mesa, Arizona, I graduated from the University of Arizona with a major in Near Eastern Studies. I began my career with BurrellesLuce in 1997 as a reader. As with most readers, I developed a special relationship with my assigned papers – those small town dailies and weeklies of the same flavor that my family had been employed in for two generations. Currently, I hold the position of quality assurance specialist, troubleshooting daily production issues. Outside interests include woodworking, and keeping my wife and dog happy. Twitter: BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Media Monitoring, Public Relations, Technology | 2 Comments »

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