Documenting the link between publicity and revenue.

1. Chapter 2: Sales & Marketing
The Missing Link: Publicity &
Revenue Generation
By Tom Nicholson
M
easuring the direct impact of kind of measurement may never present itself be-
publicity on revenue generation cause of long sales cycles and the inability to sort
is challenging but not impossible. out the variables that ultimately led to a purchase
Multiple variables, lack of control decision. But, there is an industry that offers the
groups and infrequent “ideal opportunities” cause perfect laboratory for this type of work.
most of us to simply take it on faith that good National or regional retailers are in the unique
publicity improves sales revenue. Several models position of being able to measure two things better
have been created to draw correlations between than other businesses. First, with the use of scanner
publicity and sales. Most rely on collecting data data, sales can be measured very precisely. Retail-
on the number of impressions possible for any ers know what product was purchased, what day
given product, brand or company and then it was purchased, the time of day, which store and
mapping that against revenue growth to imply a even at which register the transaction occurred.
connection. Product codes allow sorting on not only the cat-
Critics of this approach are fond of saying cor- egory of merchandise purchased, but also the pre-
relation does not indicate causality. cise item. Was it one that was advertised the day
Another approach is to measure share of voice before? Was it an item that was featured online?
versus competition. This is useful for gauging your Was the item one that was the subject of a favor-
relative effectiveness versus your peer group, but it able article in the newspaper, magazine or blog?
doesn’t get to the question of, “What is my return All of this data is available to national retailers and
on my public relations investment?” it represents an incredible treasure trove of infor-
There is, however, a way to draw a direct link be- mation.
tween publicity and revenue increases and demon- The second thing national or regional retailers
strate clear causality when the circumstances are can do is isolate the publicity variable when condi-
right and the opportunity presents itself. Recog- tions are just right. What do I mean by just right?
nizing those opportunities and then acting quickly Here are some examples:
and decisively will provide invaluable data.
Sears
A Measurable Industry While I was responsible for the public relations
In most industries, the opportunity to do this programs for the Sears retail formats, the company
Not everything that can be measured counts, and not everything that
counts can be measured.
40 PR News’ PR Measurement Guidebook Volume 6 © PR News

2. Chapter 2: Sales & Marketing
the footwear group, we asked for specific data on
sales of the products featured in the article. He was
able to provide information on sales of those SKUs
(stock keeping units) for the three weeks leading
up to the article and for three weeks following the
article. We looked at sales in the New York/New
Jersey market, Chicago (our control market), and
also our national numbers (to verify that Chicago
was not an anomaly).
Plotting the sales data for each market showed
an astonishing jump in sales in New Jersey, a mod-
est lift in New York and negative sales trends in
Chicago and nationally.
We also saw that the impact of the article lasted
only about a week as sales returned to national
norms in the second week after the article ap-
peared.
Tracking sales showed a marked increase in New Jersey.
Lessons Learned and Application
was fortunate enough to land a very positive article The New York Times/Fashion Footwear example
in the Sunday New York Times featuring a line of does not mean that every favorable article will
inexpensive fashion footwear modeled after much result in positive revenue increases, but it does
more expensive designer shoes. clearly establish a very direct link between positive
The headline for the article was, “The Look Says publicity in a respected publication and a dramatic
Blahnik; The Label Is Sears.” The article itself went jump in revenue as a result.
on to profile an individual who regularly attended
red-carpet events in New York and often wore Sears
How Can This Be Replicated in Other
shoes. She also regularly received compliments on Companies?
her taste in Blahnik’s. A photo featured an assort-
ment of women’s fashion footwear and the article 1. Become familiar with the capabilities of
your finance and IT departments. Any
appeared on the front page of the lifestyle section. business that tracks customer purchases using
It was a home-run placement. Almost. The ar- UPC codes and scanners potentially has a wealth
ticle ran only in the New York/New Jersey edition of data on purchase habits which can be mined for
of the paper, not the national edition. Initially, I re- this type of information. Enlisting these profes-
ceived the comment, “Oh, it’s a shame it didn’t run sionals also adds a great deal of credibility to your
nationally, but nice placement anyway.” And, “Our measurement results. Finance has no vested inter-
customers don’t read the New York Times.” est in making your department look good, so if
This was one of those moments where circum- they can verify the numbers and the methodology
stances conspired to present a perfect measure- you will have great credibility.
2.
ment opportunity. Identify opportunities to measure the
impact of significant articles in local mar-
Measuring Publicity of the Placement
kets, using the technique above. A national article
Because the article ran only locally, we knew that
or placement on the Web will be difficult to isolate
it had the potential of impacting revenue in the
since you will lack a control market to measure it
New York/New Jersey market, but would have no
against. You can always map it to sales trends and
impact on Chicago or nationally. We could there-
prior year sales, but people will be reluctant to
fore isolate the publicity variable in one market
credit the publicity if they can say there are other
and compare to control markets in other cities and
variables to consider.
nationally.
Enlisting the help of the finance vice president in
3. You will have to be willing to take some
prnewsonline.com PR News’ PR Measurement Guidebook Volume 6 41

3. Chapter 2: Sales & Marketing
risks. What if this great placement had shown no are factors in which stores rank highest in sales.
lift in sales? Would that disprove your value? This Yet, helping consumers discover the new store
may be the biggest reason more departments are quickly and ramp up sales in the first weeks fol-
not doing this type of measurement. A similar lowing the opening was a critical role played by
project measuring the impact of a placement on the enormous amount of publicity generated for
the Oprah Winfrey Show demonstrated a $13 mil- the opening. Down the road, it is also possible that
lion lift in sales, while a placement on the Rosie Walgreens could match local publicity on specific
O’Donnell Show came up with no discernible sales products with scanner data to create more exam-
increase. You won’t always see great results, but ples of the impact of publicity on revenue.
when you do it creates a very compelling argument Again, creating these measures is possible when
for the influence of publicity. you are looking for the right opportunities. Retail-
ers have some unique advantages in measuring
Walgreens
revenue increases and isolating the variables. And,
Another example involving the promotion of a it is not a huge leap of faith to believe that if pub-
store, rather than a product, is provided by Wal- licity has a positive measurable impact in this in-
greens. dustry, it can have a similar positive effect in other
With more than 7,800 locations nationally, the industries where the isolation of sales variables is
opening of one new store may not seem significant not as clear cut.
news. However, in January 2012 a new store was Not everything that can be measured counts,
one of the first of a radically different format for and not everything that counts can be measured.
Walgreens. As a result, it received enormous pub- Certainly, there is much more value provided by
licity in the Chicago market and nationally. public relations than simply the publicity to gener-
The measurement of success here was not based ate increased sales. This is one of the easiest things
on sales of any one product, since the articles talk- to measure. Calculating the value of preventing a
ed about the store and the new format. However, crisis or providing communication which moti-
Walgreens was able to match sales data for this vates employees to make better decisions is virtu-
store against sales figures for other stores that did ally impossible to measure. But, if you can justify
not have the benefit of this publicity program. “The your budgets based on the contribution to revenue,
new store was ranked in the top five chainwide in then it’s possible to argue that the function is not
the first week after the publicity and continues to overhead. Rather, it is a real contributor to return
rank in the top 10 in terms of sales,” says Michael on investment calculations. PRN
Polzin, spokesperson for the company.
Certainly other factors, such as location, demo- Tom Nicholson is managing director at The Nichol-
graphics, competition and advertising/promotions son Group, a communications consultancy.
42 PR News’ PR Measurement Guidebook Volume 6 © PR News