Dubai’s second annual PR Congress began today and is expected to attract 100’s of PR practitioners from across the region. The congress aims to bring together leading regional PR practitioners on a single platform, where they can discuss and debate regional PR trends and strategies.
According to the Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) the total value of the Middle East PR industry has crossed the USD 25 million per annum mark, a figure dismissed by rival PR practitioners organization, Arabian Business Communicators Association, due to the failure of MEPRA to give a credible source.
This growth is apparently due to the expansion and development of the perception and usefulness of Public Relations as more than just an extra marketing tool. PR is now considered the most useful means of publicly communicating a company’s message, ensuring positive investor and governmental relations and is considered as a crucial crisis management tool.
However, the launch of the event comes with a strict warning to PR practitioners from its official sponsors and the regions only media intelligence firm, Mediastow. Mohammad Elzubeir, Managing Director of Mediastow, commented: “The PR industry needs to take a serious look at the way in which it measures the efficacy of its work, or risk losing all credibility in the eyes of the businesses. Traditional methods of counting clippings and calculating advertising equivalence values are simply not accurate measurement techniques. If agencies don’t find a way to measure the real value of their work, they risk losing their clients and missing out on future business opportunities.”
The main issue of the PR industry is underlined as the measurement of the effectiveness of PR campaigns. The majority of PR agencies in the region still refer to the traditional measurements tools which fail to demonstrate bottom line effects. Some believe the congress to be a result of continual inter-industry disagreements over a lack of a standardized set of guidelines, objectives and agreed-upon PR effectiveness measurement techniques.
“The PR industry needs an effective way to measure the efficacy of their work,” continued Mr. Elzubeir. “At Mediastow we have developed a new system called RAVE (Real Advertising Value Equivalent), which gives you a realistic indication of the value of your clipping. The system takes into account variables such as the mention type (headline, 1st paragraph or marginal) and the use of visuals (color, black and white or none at all). These variables provide us with a prominence index that allows us to adjust other figures to come out with the real advertising value equivalent. This is not to mention other variables such as the rating of the publication itself, its (claimed or audited) circulation as well as the positioning of the clipping,” continued Elzubeir. “RAVE provides tools that allow you the only way to truly assess your PR performance and effectiveness.” He concluded.
