By Macharia Kamau
An index that will measure the value of public relations to organisations has been unveiled.
The Media Publicity Index (MPI), developed by the Steadman Group and the Public Relations of Kenya (PRSK), will be used to measure the extent to which the practice contributes to an organisation’s objectives.
According to practitioners, the impact of PR on an organisation’s reputation is appreciated but many companies are yet to link them with return on investment.
"The index is a good start to demonstrate the reach of public relations’ messages and will go along way in assisting PR practitioners come up with a standard tool for their work," said Mr Sam Karanja, general manager at BluePrint Marketing.
The Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) has been used to measure this but practitioners have been of the opinion that their professional undertakings are worth much more.
AVE is a measure commonly used to demonstrate the benefit a company derives from media coverage of a PR campaign.
Media coverage
It factors the size of the coverage gained, its placement and calculate what the equivalent amount of space would cost, if paid for as advertising.
"Many organisations are attracted to it because it attaches monetary value to media coverage," said PRSK Chairman Peter Mutie.
"The measurement of organisational performance is moving from financial returns only, to the triple bottomline made up of social, economic and environmental returns," he said.
He noted in developed markets, many companies are factoring in returns on social and environmental investments, which show the toll that their operations have on communities and environment they operate in. The index has been fashioned like the Nairobi Stock Exchange’s share index that tracks the overall performance of the companies listed at the bourse. The MPI will, however, monitor individual companies performance.
"The MPI will be tracking the performance of the individual companies on a quarterly basis and depending on whether the publicity a company gets is positive or negative, its points can go up or down," said Mr Edward Ihaji Steadman Group statistician.
