TAM to develop rating tool for PR companies

After becoming the accepted currency for delivering television rating points in India, TAM Media, the joint venture between research majors ACNielsen ORG Marg and IMRB, is now aiming to repeat this performance in tracking news coverage.

TAM Media has tied up with the Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI) to develop a standard PR measurement toolkit for the Indian PR industry. A first cut of the proposed measurement tool has already been presented to PR agencies across the country to gauge their response.

PRCAI members include leading PR agencies like Genesis Burson Marsteller, Adfactors, Corporate Voice Weber Shandwick and Text 100.

At present, tracking the news coverage of companies and analysing the impact of editorial content has been in-house by most PR agencies and some third party service providers like Cirrus, Impact, Business Intelligence Unit and even Tam Media's media measurement and evaluation unit Eikona PR Track.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, vice president, communications, TAM Media, told Business Standard that the need for a single currency to track media coverage and editorial content analysis was essential because there are several methods being followed at present. "There is a need to standardise the process and prove to clients that the reports submitted are from a neutral source," he added.

At present, most PR agencies track the media coverage of their clients and prove value to clients by multiplying the space of editorial content with the ad value rate of that space to showcase returns to clients.

Nandita Lakshmanan, president, PRCAI and founder-CEO of The PRactice, a Bangalore-based PR agency, said that the new toolkit would help PR agencies outsource non core functions like PR tracking and focus on the communication needs of clients effectively. "It will also provide young PR agencies that do not have tracking capabilities access to a robust system," she added.

A senior executive from a large sized PR agency said a single currency would be the right way forward. "Considering that the wave of ROI and ROCE is spreading to all areas of business, various functions like PR and advertising are facing the challenge of justifying that investments in these areas," he said.

At present PR agencies point out that clients are demanding more bang for the rupee and the fixed retainer fee that agencies used to earn in the past is being fast replaced by a fixed-cum-retainer fee.