Hill and Knowlton is teaming up with WPP sister firms to launch an evaluation tool-kit that aims to revolutionise PR analysis.
Millward Brown and Mindshare ATG have joined forces with H&K to offer firms the chance to measure not only how many people are receiving PR messages, but also the quality of messages and the isolated effect of PR.
The new kit, called PRecision, follows hot on the heels of Manning Selvage and Lee's I to I Tracker (PR Week, 29 September) which also claims to single out the effect of PR from the wider marketing mix.
Having launched the product in the UK, H&K plans to roll it out in the US, followed by the Asia-Pacific region.
MaryLee Sachs, H&K executive vice-president of worldwide marketing communications, said the agency had been in talks about the toolkit for the past five years.
'It's not a H&K product, but we've been involved since the start,' she said. 'We are finding clients are already spending a lot on advertising evaluation, so this package can quite easily add PR evaluation into the mix, which fits well into their budgets - it's like piggybacking on marketing evaluation.'
The PRecision toolkit has three main components: media impact measurement, consumer or stakeholder attitude tracking and strategic media targeting.
The process starts with a targeting and benchmarking exercise run by Mindshare and Millward Brown/ Precis. After the PR campaign has finished, an impact analysis is conducted, followed by the final stage, an assessment of the effect of the campaign on its target audience.
