Re-energizing a major travel service’s media measurement with advanced sentiment and deep qualitative metrics
The Client
A privately held, not-for-profit national member association and service organization serving more than 60 million members both online and through various branches across the U.S. and Canada. The company’s public relations team helps promote the organization and educate the public through various thought leadership and community engagement initiatives, including interviews with media; industry reports; and general advice, tips, and guidance surrounding its area of expertise.
At a glance:
Fullintel transformed the effectiveness of a large travel service’s media measurement – formerly a brief, quantitative-only look at the organization’s monthly media coverage – through a combination of expanded quantitative metrics and deep qualitative insights, to provide 360-degree context around every mention. This included Fullintel’s Media Impact Score (MIS) and a flexible sentiment methodology to accurately value the organization’s thought leadership and community engagement initiatives.
The Challenge
The client’s previous media measurement activities focused solely on quantitative metrics (evaluated both monthly and quarterly) such as number of mentions, earned media placements, spokesperson mentions, and reach. The client also used a competitor’s proprietary impact metric that was difficult to decipher and couldn’t deliver the results they expected.
Indeed, as time progressed, this approach had grown stale. It couldn’t provide the depth of media measurement and intelligence the organization required to meet its internal goals, including growing its membership and increasing awareness of its brand among non-members through effective PR campaigns.
So its communications team approached Fullintel for expert advice and guidance on how to evolve its media intelligence activities, to better assess the value of its activities.
The Fullintel media impact scoring model completely replaced our previous scoring model, which was ambiguous for leadership and other stakeholders. Fullintel’s model (out of 100 with clear parameters) has been well received and easy to explain. When we say a campaign had a score of 76 out of 100, it’s a quick and easy metric for anyone to understand.
The Solution
Fullintel recommended a new media measurement approach combining deep qualitative metrics – including prominence, a comprehensive sentiment methodology, and Media Impact Score applied to key sources – along with expert human curation, qualitative observations, and insights from an industry-savvy, highly trained media analyst.
This was joined by an expanded set of quantitative metrics – including quote and headline visibility, key messages by sentiment, and regional volume combined with Media Impact Score – to measure the impact of its media efforts across the client’s list of preferred sources.
The client’s new measurement approach now includes:
1. Deep Sentiment Methodology
The organization previously did not measure sentiment, largely because its thought leadership coverage and commentary often appeared alongside negative news items. Because the organization did not measure sentiment, it was difficult to track the full value of mentions regarding official guidelines, warnings, precautions, surveys and predictions (aka thought leadership initiatives). This approach misrepresented the organization’s value as a provider of sound advice to the public, especially compared to its competitors.
Fullintel recommended sentiment tagging all articles from the organization’s point of view, while adding positive weight to thought leadership initiatives and other spokesperson mentions. The organization’s thought leadership mentions are now always represented as positive, no matter the overall tone of the story. This helped the organization better evaluate the success of each campaign – and adjust accordingly, if necessary.
2. Media Impact Score
Fullintel recommended adding a Media Impact Score, based on AMEC measurement standards, to evaluate the quality (and not just quantity) of the organization’s media coverage. This replaced its previous evaluation scale which the client felt was ambiguous and difficult to explain to stakeholders.
The MIS calculation includes sentiment, spokesperson quotes, article prominence, and headline visibility from key media sources. All MIS scores are out of 100 and have clear parameters, making it a powerful metric that’s easy for stakeholders to understand. Fullintel also recommended MIS scoring and sentiment only be applied to key media outlets, allowing the organization to benchmark over time the real impact of coverage reaching its target audience.
The metrics and weighting used for the client’s new MIS calculation, based on AMEC measurement standards and applied to coverage from the client’s key sources, is below. All MIS-evaluated articles are scored out of 100:
- Outlet Tier: (Tier 1: +40, Tier 2: +25, Tier 3: +15)
- Sentiment: (Positive: +25, Neutral: +10, Negative: -25)
- Prominence: (Exclusive: +10, Dominant: +7, Balanced: +5, Minor: +2)
- Spokesperson Quote: (+15)
- Headline visibility: (+10)
Overall Media Impact Scores (along with average YTD and 12 month rolling average) are calculated by averaging the impact scores of all articles from key media outlets. Key media outlet classifications were developed with the client’s input.
3. Expertly Curated Analysis Report
An expertly-curated monthly analysis report includes regional volume vs. average MIS, top stories garnering the strongest MIS, sentiment comparisons, top sources cross-referenced by sentiment, along with average YTD MIS and a 12-month rolling average.
Result
The organization now has much greater visibility into the prominence, sentiment, and quality of each media mention thanks to an approach that follows the Barcelona Principles of media measurement. That has in turn helped it better focus and target communications campaigns based on sentiment and other qualitative data.
Adding qualitative evaluation to existing quantitative metrics allowed AAA to reach its internal media outreach and organizational goals, such as getting coverage of its thought leadership initiatives and community outreach in key outlets, along with reaching its membership growth goal. The organization also now uses Fullintel’s sentiment data when creating new communications goals around improving coverage tone.
MIS scoring provided a qualitative measurement for each media mention, allowing the organization to go beyond surface numbers and glean deeper insights from its coverage. MIS scoring has also helped every division within the not-for-profit establish quality-driven benchmarks for comparison with other divisions (and for accurate comparisons against itself over time).
Thanks to Fullintel’s expert media curation, MIS scoring, and deep sentiment, the organization’s senior leadership also now has a much better (and more accurate) view of the performance of its communications team. The MIS score is easy for stakeholders to understand, allowing the communications team to spend more time analyzing coverage and less time explaining the score’s methodology and context to senior leadership.
Fullintel’s media impact scoring allows us to focus on more in-depth analysis of our coverage and recommendations on future efforts, instead of helping stakeholders understand how the score is calculated and what it means.
Prior to switching to Fullintel we were missing key information, especially when measured against our competitors. This new insight has been important for us because we can look at individual campaigns and the way they were messaged to determine if that approach worked (i.e. more positive coverage) or if it should be adjusted.
Our services
Media Monitoring
Get a view of your coverage across all channels including online news, broadcast, social, radio, and even premium subscription services.
Executive News Briefs
Daily media coverage highlights and summarized insights, handpicked for relevancy and delivered to your inbox at the start of your day.
Media Analysis
Leverage the expertise of your dedicated Fullintel analyst for interpretation of your coverage and the impact on your brand.
Crisis Monitoring
24/7 alerting, daily coverage reports, and insightful wrap-up analysis from Fullintel’s award-winning crisis media monitoring team.
Event Monitoring
Track mentions, sentiment, and other KPIs down to the minute during earnings days, product launches, trade shows, and other important events.
Risk & Compliance Monitoring
Accurate, real-time risk signals media monitoring to detect supply chain and other issues before they become major problems.
