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Outputs and Outtakes and Outcomes -- Oh My!

In my experience, the terms outputs, outtakes and outcomes are not well understood among PR professionals. And if they are not well understood, building a PR measurement program will get derailed by using incorrect approaches and flawed reporting. Therefore, I propose an alternate framework of Media Influence, Audience Influence, and Business Influence.

Since the Institue for PR published the paper "Guidelines for Measuring the Effectiveness of PR Programs and Activities" in 2002, these terms have gained currency in the industry. Almost every presentation I see includes the terms "outcomes" and "outputs". But I continue to see what I consider to be misclassifications of  what I consider outputs and PR activities as outcomes.

Perhaps because the terms are somewhat mysterious. And while I like the alliteration and parallelism in the "out-" triad, it may be too confusing. So I'd like to propose an alternative framework:

  • Media Influence -- this is essentially the outputs: clips, impressions, quality of coverage. In other words: did our PR activities cause the media to respond to our messages and report on them?
  • Audience Influence -- this is essentially outtakes, though I differ a bit in Prof. Lindenmann's definition which is "determining if those to whom the activity was directed received, paid attention to, comprehended, and retained particular messages." I would go the next step to measure if these messages change audience perception, attitudes, and intentions, which the paper categorizes as "outcomes". Thus, this category of measurement answers the question: did our PR activities cause the intended audience to respond to our messages? The main approaches here are likely to be based on market research surveys.
  • Business Influence -- These outcomes I define  very strictly as a financial impact on the business which can be measured in one of three ways: sales, stock price, or brand equity valuation. This category of metrics answers the question: did our PR activities positively influence the business? I use this strict definition because 1) we know that at the end of the day, this is all the C-suite really cares about and 2) it is the most complicated, expensive, and difficult metrics to create and link to PR activities. The main approaches are likely to be sophisticated modeling techniques, like market mix modeling.

While I don't want to get the industry hung up in changing terms for change's sake, I think the distinction is important. It will make it much clearer what measurements and methdologies address which aspect of measurement and clear away some of the fog surrounding the purpose and usefulness of different approaches.

(I also think we need to rethink the Audience Influence approach in light of the idea of "engagement", but I'll save that for another post.)

Thoughts?

Posted by Jim Nail on October 31, 2007 at 10:22 AM | Email this post Permalink
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Comments

Jim, your points are well taken, and I certainly welcome alternative definitions of outputs, outtakes and outcomes. But as a contributor to those IPR guidelines, and someone who has been trying to get the industry to agree on some common language, I have a hard time accepting an entirely new set of terms. Especially since "outputs" are not just media related, but might also include emails, brochures, or any other "output" that a communications professional produces. And "Outcomes" isn't just about business outcomes -- it might be a change in policy, or more members fora non-profit.

Posted by: KDPaine | Oct 31, 2007 5:09:53 PM

Thanks Katie. You raise some good points.

As I said, I hate to quibble over terminology, and I know the Measurement Commission has been working hard for years to develop these standards. But in this case it seems that the industry has not accepted Prof Lindenmann's definition of the terms, instead redefining them to suit their own purposes. More explicit names make it harder to play fast and loose with the definition, IMHO.

As to your point about emails, brochures, etc. I think they fit into Media Influence, as long as you have the quantity of these pieces distributed.

For non-profits, I accept your broadening of outcomes to include a policy change, which can be the raison d'etre for an NGO. And, I guess, growth in members translates to more clout to press for that policy change. But growth in members can be readily converted to a financial metric, and I suspect any reasonably sophisticated non-profit who uses direct marketing understands the lifetime value of a new member.

Posted by: Jim Nail | Oct 31, 2007 5:34:50 PM

Hi Jim,

I fully support the notion that the 'Out' terms are not well understood and are often misapplied. It would be hard for anybody to argue otherwise. The challenge is the solution. What do we offer as an alternative? I believe your alternatives are interesting and deserving of more thought.

I would be a little reluctant on the first metric to use the word 'Media' since we all know the 'Media' is being disintermediated and their influence made less relevant daily. It might be interesting to explore a defintion that embraces the whole social media/Web 2.0 trend. Audience influence works well. Busienss influence I would imagine would be the most controverial of the three. While I agree that ultimately we could assign a dolar value to everything, that level of abstraction makes it difficult to get at PR's contribution to key areas like brand and reputation. One might argue brand equity addresses these two, but we know that the path between brand or reputation to goodwill to brand equity is very difficult to measure and show causality.

As an alternative to the 'outs' I have offered (http://metricsman.wordpress.com/) three simple metrics - Exposure, Influence and Action.

While we might offer different solutions, we fully agree on the problem. It will be interesting to see the reaction.
-Don B

Posted by: Don Bartholomew | Nov 1, 2007 12:59:35 PM

Jim: I don't agree with your central case against output, out-take and outcome as they encapsulate clearly three levels of measurement and evaluation. I've used them in practice and teaching for many years and thank Walter Lindenmann for introducing them in (I think) the early 1990s. These terms are common currency, certainly output and outcome are. I don't think the alternatives that you offer are clearer or more precise. If anything, they are more jargonish and need explaining. Thanks for offering your case, though.

Posted by: Tom Watson | Nov 1, 2007 1:22:02 PM

Just to reinforce what Tom has said, the use of output and outcome are commonly used terms in the wider evaluation field. The way they are used in media/commmunications field matches their use in evaluation in other sectors (outtake is slightly different and for me is a short-term outcome). These should be the broad terms used to define the level of change desired which then need to defined further based on specific programmes being evaluated. Further the concept of "impact" as a level is missing from a lot of the literature which is the next level of change that can be measured after "outcomes" - the longer term effects of a programme.
Glenn

Posted by: Glenn O'Neil | Nov 20, 2007 6:14:47 AM

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