This past Friday, I had the pleasure of judging the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards, one of the most prestigious awards in the PR industry. While it was a long day in a land far away (Tribeca), it was well worth it for the people I met and the insights I gleaned.
I had no clue what to expect, hoping only to get an inside peek at what some of the best and brightest in the industry were doing on behalf of their clients. What I learned is that while most of the tactics are the same (“there are no new ideas, only new ways of making them felt”), the campaigns that stood out did so because of their research. Whether it was an industry behemoth undertaking a multi-year study or a smaller agency issuing a Zoomerang survey to its target demographic, the research was invaluable in setting a baseline with which to measure a campaign against. Without knowing how your demographic thinks and feels at the beginning of a campaign, how can you know if public relations truly made an impact? The industry constantly talks about the difficulty of measuring ROI yet this seems like the strongest and easiest way to demonstrate it. Beyond the bottom line, did you change perception – is your consumer more willing to try your product or service, more likely to recommend it to a friend, more favorable about the brand? If the answers are yes, then your campaign has to be considered a success.
Now, I can’t wait to judge the upcoming PRSA Bronze Anvil Awards, although I wish it would again be in the company of my Silver Anvil team (Jeff Davis, Principal, Sawmill Marketing; Patrice Tanaka, Co-Chair, Chief Creative Officer, CRT/tanaka; and David B. Rockland, Partner & Managing Director, Global Research, Ketchum). Although I will be creating my own team for these more tactical awards, I look forward to the powerful professional development they will without question provide me.
Posted by Alissa Pinck, GM/VP
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