PHILADELPHIA, PA - Surveillance Data, parent of PRtrak media measurement systems, has introduced a new metric it calls Media Prominence Index, which it says is a a way to efficiently measure media coverage in relation to business outcomes.

According to Gerald Kress, chairman of SDI, the MPI has been in development for the past 12 months, and has been tested utilizing hundreds of thousands of news articles and pitted against specific client company outcomes.

“Based on the controversies and dissatisfactions with the metrics available to the PR industry up to this point, we set out to mathematically determine a reliable metric for capturing both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of unpaid media,” says Kress. “We reverse-engineered our own sophisticated processes to yield an algorithm that most closely correlates competitive media coverage with solid business outcomes.”

The Media Prominence Index was inspired by two high-level public relations researchers, Bruce Jeffries-Fox, of Jeffries-Fox Associates, and David Michaelson of David Michaelson & Company.

“PRtrak’s MPI is unique in its market-driven measure of prominence. This is one of the few measures today that truly looks at the likelihood of consumer exposure in a way that is verifiable by third parties,” says Michaelson. Adds Jeffries-Fox, “The strength of the metric is that it ties objective media analysis data with marketplace behavior. That’s something we’ve been trying to do for a long time.”

According to Angela Jeffrey, vice president of the PRtrak Division of SDI, two factors emerged early in all the firm’s studies: the importance of competitive analysis, and the importance of precision, negotiated media data in combination with qualitative analysis.

“We learned very quickly that ‘share of discussion,’ which is the quality and quantity of a firm’s nonpaid media compared to that of its competitors’ was the real link between media outputs and business outcomes like sales, customer preference, and prescription volume,” says Jeffrey. “Out of all our share of discussion studies, 96 percent have shown strong correlations: some high enough to allow sales predictions, which is incredibly positive news for the public relations industry.”

The Media Prominence Index uses a nine-point tonality scale, a nine-point prominence scale, and the media value associated with each story. The exact algorithm was refined through a Share of Discussion study utilizing 200,000 articles and tested against specific outcome measures.

The Media Prominence Index has been built into the new PRtrak Web Version 2.0, which is being released this week. At a starting price point of $100/month, PRtrak will make the metric available to virtually everyone. PRTrak Parent Unveils New Tool Linking Media Coverage and Business Outcomes

Angie Jeffries-Fox, 713.956.1516, angie@prtrak.com
Gary Getto, 610.834.0800, ggetto@survdata.com