How do you measure PR?

I've just been reading the John Fenty bashing thread and someone on there says that it is bad PR. Who decides that it is bad PR? Who decides that it is good PR? Is bad PR good PR? Is good PR bad PR? As a fan should John Fenty not be allowed to express his views? As a director should he not be allowed to express his views about Grimsby Town football club? Isn't Max Clifford a PR guru? Where is he now?

For me PR is like phycology, a lot of guess work.

Quoted from The Grim Reaper

I've just been reading the John Fenty bashing thread and someone on there says that it is bad PR. Who decides that it is bad PR? Who decides that it is good PR? Is bad PR good PR? Is good PR bad PR? As a fan should John Fenty not be allowed to express his views? As a director should he not be allowed to express his views about Grimsby Town football club? Isn't Max Clifford a PR guru? Where is he now?

For me PR is like phycology, a lot of guess work.

It's a load of bolox in my opinion. Who makes decisions based on PR? Will anyone say "I would have gone to watch Town play but Fenty posted on the Fishy so now I won't"?

Dropping to this league is no PR recommendation!!

For PR to really succeed, there needs to be a promotion season - a reason to celebrate, a reason to attend regularly, a reason to accept the JF PR machine !

PR in the next league up is the target !

AVE is the most common methodology!

http://www.prweek.com/article/903837/ave-debate-measuring-value-pr

The old adage is 'all publicity is good publicity'. Pretty sure that's Ryanairs philosophy, not sure it's worked for Max Clifford though!?

Got to say PR requires a lot more guess work than psychology!  

But I guess PR is measured by the audience, a few people on the fishy now know that our chairman posts on here.  Most people seem to think that while it seems odd the fact that he bothers is OK so to that audience it is good PR for John Fenty.

If it featured in the gossip column of a sports paper it would probably count as bad PR making Grimsby look like a club who a run by a few raving lunatics an open forum.

Either way I think it's impact is surely minimal, just a case of using morton''s fork on Fenty.  If he had never been on the Fishy:

"He is arrogant, not listening to or engaging with fans etc."

Now he is on the fishy:

"What bad PR, he lacks class, run the club professionally etc."  

I thought it was 3.1412 or something to do with circles

In the absence of anything more meaningful, AVE (advertising value equivalent, as in the money you'd otherwise pay for the same space in the paper or the air time on radio/TV) continues to be the way.

In my last job I was responsible for finding a better way to measure PR, and the short answer is that nothing really works. The industry can't agree on one thing.

PR, essentially, is advertising without having to pay for it. "Earned media" is the phrase you hear most these days, because most people associate PR with 'spin' and (sadly) Max Clifford.

Good PR shouldn't be about burying bad news and highlighting good news. It should be a way of giving the public all the information it needs to make an informed opinion of their own. And, of course, there are good and bad ways of doing that.

Too Good To Go Down has written a really good blog piece about the latest Fenty PR incident, which is worth reading.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

The old adage is 'all publicity is good publicity'. Pretty sure that's Ryanairs philosophy, not sure it's worked for Max Clifford though!?

The adage is 'no such thing as bad publicity'.  And it's a rubbish adage!

Bad publicity is, well.... bad - as was discussed on this forum Sacha Baron Cohen thread ad naseum (guilty m'lud).  

Ryanair actually suffer commercially from their original image - wherever there is equivalently-priced competition, most travellers express a preference to use the alternative carriers.  They're now spending to generate positive PR.  Apparently.

As a poster above says, even the PR industry doesn't know how to consistently measure PR value.  Today, the UK's leading PR agency simply measures newspaper and magazine column inches to demonstrate the success of campaigns to their clients - regardless of whether the content is positive or negative.  However - they know that this is at best redundant, and at worse, nutty.

PR or Public Relations can't be measured for me, only interpretted. Its the relationship/interaction/conversation between two or more parties. Take GTFC for example, the club have a duty (and hopefully a desire!) to inform and interact with the paying fans, its major revenue provider. How well it does that, and the many different ways it chooses to, will ultimately form its PR experience. Whether its the mundane but important fixture information, ground safety rules, player signing news, gold bond ticket availability, non football related revenue oppurtunities, youth development oppurtunities or whatever else, the club will decide how and when to release the information. If it does it well, professionally and easily digested in a wide manner of media, more people will access the information and be aware of it, a companies relationship with its customers is defined by the customers willingness to part with their cash, ultimately.

Too good to go down writes a load of shite. What qualifies him to judge PR and Fenty? He sounds like he's a schoolboy who has read all the PR books.

I work in a PR type job and grimsby's PR is shocking. There are two basics that grimsby ignore on a regular basis - firstly don't give an emotional response - give a rational response - too often people at GTFC have said things in the heat of the moment rather than waiting to give a statement. The second is don't offend your customers - the comment about the fans getting behind the team in the run up to the end of the season was just stupid.

Quoted from The Grim Reaper

Too good to go down writes a load of shite. What qualifies him to judge PR and Fenty? He sounds like he's a schoolboy who has read all the PR books.

Thanks John!

Quoted from The Grim Reaper

Too good to go down writes a load of shite. What qualifies him to judge PR and Fenty? He sounds like he's a schoolboy who has read all the PR books.

I don't know him personally but I know he's worked in the PR industry. I think he's qualified to offer his perspective.

A lot is said about PR and it's one of those disciplines that everyone thinks they know a lot about, and that's because, in truth, PR is pretty simple. It's common sense. It's about knowing what to say and when to say it (and also understanding who you're saying it to).

But a ridiculous amount of people get it wrong because they're senior professionals who have spent too much of their working life making decisions in boardrooms and have become detached from understanding what their customers really want. And when someone tells them what the score is at ground level, so to speak, they can choose to ignore it and go with their (bad) instincts because, after all, they're the boss - and what they say, goes.

The best chief execs, chairmen in this evolving world where the power is shifting to the consumer are ones that are prepared to listen to their customers - or at least someone within their organisation i.e. a PR Manager, who can relay the situation to them.

He's certainly sucked you in Rich. You're right about it being common sense though and that's all PR is. The customer is always right is a loan of bollox.

Quoted from The Grim Reaper

He's certainly sucked you in Rich. You're right about it being common sense though and that's all PR is. The customer is always right is a loan of bollox.

The key is to make the customer feel like their getting a good deal but really mugging them off for maximum profit