Accountability gap: Evaluation practices show improvement

Abstract

The need to document resulis and prove that public relations is working has raised interest in recent years in the evaluation stage of the public relations process. Since 1982, for example, evaluation data must be included in all entries in the Silver Anvil competition, the “Academy Awards” of public relations. On the assumption that Silver Anvil winners represent some of the nation's best public relations work, this paper reports a critical analysis of the evaluation methods used by the 58 Silver Anvil winners for 1984 and 1985. An empirical typology of 12 evaluation methods is developed, and the usage of various methods measured. The methods and their use are critiqued according to criteria for causality established by Lazarsfeld. A great deal of evaluation activity may be found among the Silver Anvil winners. Winners typically employ packages of three or four different evaluation methods, including a mix of measures of communication output, communication effect, and organizational goal achievement. But the specifity of data varies widely, including substantial amounts of purely anecdotal or impressionistic information. Many of the measurements employed are concerned with the public relations instead of bottom-line results. Moreover, only 43 of the 58 cases either show or claim organizational goal achievement, and of these, only 13 can be said to even partially meet Lazarsfeld's criteria. It is concluded that the level of quality of evaluation activaty in public relations practice is far lower than the level of quantity. Considerable improvement is needed if public relations is to claim that it can both get results and prove it.