When the animal health subsidiary of a major pharmaceutical company raised money in its public offering, it was the second largest IPO from a U.S. company in history and it quickly became the largest global animal health company.
The newly public company built a communications strategy around global expansion, innovation, and customer experience. They needed a solution to help them measure how their coverage was mapping to these goals and how they compared to their competitors for metrics like SOV and audience reach.
Measuring Coverage Tonality, SOV and Reach
They deployed a multilayered media measurement program powered by PublicRelay to monitor and analyze social, broadcast and traditional media coverage. Semiannually, the company reviews the in-depth analysis that helps the communications team understand their brand’s dominance in the market and its public perception. The team is looking at both most recent activity and time over time metrics to understand trends and look for anomalies.
The communications team evaluates the top tier outlets they and their competitors appeared in, their coverage tone levels, the authors rewriting about them, how often their spokespeople are getting quoted, and the stories trending on social media. All this data is aggregated to summarize the company’s global coverage reach every six months. Over time, the team can see the types of stories and authors that trend on social media and across what channels and become more predictive about their campaign performance. They also evaluate their spokesperson strategies and determine who is gaining the most traction and on which topics.
The analysis also features reach and SOV for their band and competitors. The data is shared the internal PR team, who can adjust their media engagement plans based on which key topics about its competitors gained the most traction in high-powered outlets.
Understanding Key Message Pull-Through
Brand and product-level analysis of reputation drivers like global leadership, innovation, customer service, and impact on emerging markets helps the team measure their campaigns and message pull-through success. Reports outline the percentage of high-status (high-reach) outlets that cover information about the Pharma company’s different business divisions, ranging from their vaccine arm to their livestock services, and the prevalence of key brand messages.
Such insight is indispensable for strategic and tactical assessment and future planning. For example, when the company recognized that its global leadership and innovation messages where getting picked up by high-powered outlets and accounted for 50% of coverage, the team could then pivot resources to different messages that were not performing as well. Furthermore, the head of communications was able to show his entire company how its communications team is boosting the company’s brand reputation, year over year.
Understanding the Impact of Sponsorship Campaigns, Strategic Partnerships and Events
Aside from helping the company evaluate how well its reach and key message-pull through is increasing, the communications team can also understand how well their communications efforts around key corporate initiatives are paying off, and how the public is responding to those messages.
For instance, the company has strategic partnerships with many other companies like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, Mayo Clinic, the American Humane Society, the Hero Dog Awards, and others. Bi-Yearly reports analyze the communications around these campaigns and show whether these initiatives have successfully generated positive spikes in coverage.
Similarly, the company measures its earnings reports and acquisition announcements. Comparing spikes related to specific events gives its leadership key insight into how well key stakeholders are receiving strategic partnerships, acquisitions and earnings information.
Daily, Company-Wide Reports and Insights
Semiannual and annual reports are supplemented with a daily clip report that is circulated to the entire C-Suite and Board. The daily updates contain brand mentions and key industry topics across the globe so that the entire organization is abreast of global coverage and key issues, when they arise.
Lastly, the PR team keeps a very close eye on a key competitors and rumored spinoffs, acquisitions and other similar events. These reports are essential to the entire organization as they deliver competitive insight and allow the executive team to be prepared for market shifts.
