It is not hidden that how Covid19 is badly affecting the world economy, businesses and lives too. Brands are working on every possible way to reach their consumers in this lockdown with their messages, CSR activities, and more such activities. The question is how they are measuring impact? What metrics can be used by the PR and Communication professionals for the right outcome? In the 7th edition of SCoRe Talk on 13th of May, 2020, five incredible panellists from PR and Communication fraternity moderated by Pradyuman Maheshwari, Editor-in-Chief & CEO, MxMIndia talked about Measurement priorities during a lockdown. The panellists were Abhilasha Padhy, Managing Director, 80 Db Communications, Aseem Sood, CEO at Impact Research and Measurement Pvt Ltd, Rammohan Regulapati, Head of Corporate Communications and Community Relations at UltraTech Cement, Rishi Seth, Group CEO, 6 Degrees BCW and Sarah Gideon, Senior Director and Head Corporate Communications, Flipkart.

The discussion started by Pradyuman Maheshwari pointing out how bands are dealing with this pandemic situation and asking the opinion on how PR and communication fraternity is measuring impact. Sarah Gideon started to share her experience and opinion on the topic by saying that every company has its own unique way to monitor the impact of Covid19 and Flipkart is one of them. Moving ahead with her talk, Sarah mentioned that it is not about volume of the coverage but how things are breaking minute by minute. Things that helped out the company to plan towards PR outcomes are guidelines by the ministry of the home affairs, developing healthcare scenario, what competition is doing. Talking about what Flipkart is doing in this scenario, Sarah shared her experiences. “The most critical part in terms of measurement is real time monitoring.”- Sarah Gideon.

Moving ahead with Rammohan Regulapati, he started with the learnings that this pandemic situation has taught him:

• The trust is the premium
• Lead with integrity
• Partnering with value
• Catalyse the change
• Experiment and evolve
• Culture of creativity
• Embracing the ecosystem
• The need to think, think and think

Explaining all these points, he gave an advice that “If we expect our team to deliver and navigate the situation we have, then they need to be very clear on why because that will help them drive outcomes.” PR and communication fraternity has always been a part of crisis but this current situation is the unique one for everybody. In this type of situation, Abhilasha Padhy talks about what is the need of the hour. She says, “we need to shift from promotion, promoting or communicating inwards to a focus which is outwards to the brand’s purpose and how it actually answers people and how it helps them in the current situation.” The advice that we can take from Abhilasha Padhy is Corporate reputation needs to be brought at the forefront at the current situation. The metrics that 80 dB is using are:

• Measuring social engagement
• Research and surveys
• Brand sentiment analysis
• 3rd party data
• Economic surveys
• Consumer spending information

As this pandemic situation is new to every business, the old formulas are not going to work for measuring impact. We need to be innovative in terms of thinking. Rishi Seth talks about complexities that are coming on the way between a brand and its consumers. He says that trust, authenticity and empathy is all that a brand wants to communicate today. Mentioning about what is fundamentally changing, Rishi Seth points out some of the important things that are people are thinking of:

• Safety
• Renew
• Revive
• Flourish

All these points can be measured by communication. Till now, we only talked about how to measure the impacts but now Rishi Seth also pressurises that what needs to be measured primarily. He says that authenticity should be the main focus to measure on that how much a brand is authentic to their consumers. His key advice to the audience is, be more careful around your messaging and plans. Measuring employees’ sentiments should also be included in the measurement list.

After having so many talks on measurements, now finally the further discussion was handed over to the man of measurement in this fraternity, Aseem Sood. He started the discussion with what measurement is and what measurement is not. Many people think measurement as a report card but as of the today’s discussion measurement is a combination of research and insights, said Aseem Sood. He shared a presentation on measurement including various topics starting with the objectives. The objective part consists of Who, What, How much and by When. He shares his learning that he got from his clients and those are:

• Articulate the changes in your Communication Objectives
• Understand the changes in stakeholder expectations
• Listen more than before
• Output and Outcomes are both important
• Review your measurement approach and tactics
• Suspend your agenda

After all the discussions, Pradyuman Maheshwari asks the panellist that how it is impacting the PR and Communication businesses when print media is not actually reaching out the public in a way that we wanted to reach out. Answering this, Rammohan Regulapati says, “In serving the citizens became a natural fit for certain sectors to be able to leverage their business agenda to do it in a way that resonate with consumers strongly.” Moving ahead with the answers of Sarah Gideon, she says that the objectives of their company have changed week to week.

Adding to the opinions, Aseem sood says, “Print is not only the way that the corporates are able to reach out their stakeholders.” People started going digital to reach out their stakeholders. Being asked that are people accepting the new reality that the print form is not available? Rishi Seth says, “people are realising that print is no more a mainstream as it used to be.” Continuing this, Abhilasha Padhy says, “Covid19 has increased the momentum of acceptance.” The shift has already taken place from print to digital. 

The key takeaways from the discussions were:

• Articulating the changes that one is making in communicating objectives 
• Time static measurement
• Agility and speed of information gathering
• Measuring stakeholders’ expectations before taking actions 
• Keep an eye on how the brand is perceived at the end

Adding final comment to the discussion, Pradyuman Maheshwari signs off by saying, “This is a new normal. We don’t know what happen next but the things that we can do are need to be safe in every possible way, safe in our personal lives, safe in our businesses and safe in measurement.”

I, as an individual found this webinar very insightful. I enjoyed every bit of the conversation.

– Tamanna Singh

Related Article –

How will new normal look like

Learning from Adversity

How to be future-ready

Tamanna Singh, an aspiring PR professional who is a student at the School of Communications and Reputations (SCoRe). She completed her winter internship with GolinOpinion, Mumbai.

She is from Hazaribagh. She did her Bachelors in English literature from St. Collumba’s College Hazaribagh and has experience in teaching as an English teacher for 6 months in Rastra Bharti Academy, Udaipur. Tamanna has been a regional level player of Volleyball in her school time. Her blog is named as ‘The Perfect Desire’, where she shares her opinions and life experiences. Besides her academic schedule, Tamanna is always glued to music. She loves singing and dancing. For her music is important to start and end her day in a better way. She describes herself in three words, i.e, learner, funny, and a truly loyal person.

She can be reached on twitter as @TamannaS03 and on LinkedIn as Tamanna Singh