'MediaSense' to Provide Quantitative and Qualitative
Analyses of Communications Programs
BEIJING, Aug. 9 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/-- Xinhua PR Newswire, the jointly
operated entity of PR Newswire and Xinhua Finance, today announced the
availability of PR Newswire's groundbreaking new service for organizations and
agencies in need of a meaningful, yet cost-effective measurement and
evaluation tool for their media relations programs.
MediaSense, as the new service is called, enables organizations to assess
and help ensure the success of their overall communications programs through a
quantitative and qualitative analysis of the media coverage they receive.
MediaSense assists in measuring the impact of communications by providing a
clear understanding of what messages are resonating with the media, and in
turn, how a company is perceived by its publics. Communicators can use
MediaSense to evaluate the success of product launches and corporate
announcements including executive appointments and surveys, as well as help to
manage crisis communications, among other things.
"We expect the service to be popular with our Chinese companies who
increasingly seek ways to evaluate their communications efforts," said John M.
Williams, managing director of Xinhua PR Newswire. "Marketers are well aware
of the benefits of value indicators and always welcome them in their programs
-- as Chinese firms become more familiar with publicity and communications
tools, services such as MediaSense should become quite attractive."
MediaSense can be deployed over any 90-day period or utilized throughout
the course of a full year on an annual subscription. Reports will be
delivered monthly and contain an evaluation of media coverage based upon
several measures. Quantitative measures will include volume of coverage and
coverage by media type. Qualitative measures will include an evaluation of
each article's tone (positive, negative, neutral), the presence of key
corporate messages within articles, the overall quality of coverage based upon
an article's length, placement, publication type and tone, and the equivalent
ad value. All quantitative measurements will be evaluated based upon a
comparison to a company's key competitors, while qualitative reports will
offer an unbiased assessment of how a company is portrayed in the press.
MediaSense can evaluate articles in multiple languages including Mandarin and
Cantonese.
Tested in the United States through an early adopter program by
organizations including BP and American Greetings, this new tool meets a need
in the marketplace for a more cost-effective, yet thorough analytics service.
Laurie Henrichsen, manager, corporate and consumer communications,
American Greetings Corporation, signed on as an early adopter because
measuring the results of her campaigns is of critical importance to her.
Previously, Henrichsen employed a variety of methods, ranging from
vendor-provided measurement services to in-house efforts. According to
Henrichsen, these services provided valuable data, but they were not cost
effective and were often labor intensive.
''I have always relied on PR Newswire for its high quality news
distribution and targeting services, so I was very interested in piloting its
new measurement service. PR Newswire's service provided all the key
categories of measurement we needed,'' said Henrichsen. ''Once we established
our criteria, the service required little staff time. The charts and
executive summaries were shared in a format that made it easy to identify
strengths and weaknesses and share results with our executives. PR Newswire's
service is a great value, and fills a void in the marketplace that until now
was not being met.''
BP's director of corporate communications, Sarah Howell, recognizes the
value of measuring communications programs, but the company took the task
in-house when other measurement services proved to be too cost-prohibitive and
time-consuming to maintain, "measuring our efforts has always been an
important part of our communications programs because we rely on the market
sector and press intelligence to help us understand if we are on target with
our messages."
At the end of PR Newswire's early adopter pilot program, Howell was very
pleased with the results she saw in that "it provided a sense of how our
messages were standing out against our competitors."
"I used PR Newswire's early adopter pilot service to take a temperature of
how these issues are covered in the industry. As always, PR Newswire took
great pains to answer questions pertinent to my measurement needs and to tweak
the system so I would get the most reliable analysis from the program," Howell
said.
MediaSense uses qualitative analysis technology developed by KWHR. Based
in London, England, KWHR provides measurement and evaluation services on
behalf of global companies such as Dell and Sony. KWHR's Managing Director,
Keith Woods-Holder, sees MediaSense as a service able to meet the needs of a
wider spectrum of customers. ''Advanced content evaluation has, up until now,
been the preserve of leading global brands. But the need to demonstrate ROI
and benefits from campaigns affects all businesses. MediaSense will set a new
standard for measurement and evaluation that many more brands can benefit
from,'' said Woods-Holder.
About Xinhua PR Newswire
Xinhua PR Newswire is a marketing alliance created by Xinhua Finance
(TSE Mothers: 9399) and PR Newswire. Xinhua PR Newswire assists companies and
organizations in Asia with cost effective means to send news and information
to the media, general public and investment community in China, Asia and the
rest of the world. Xinhua PR Newswire distributes press releases to 135
countries and regions in 30 languages by leveraging PR Newswire's global news
distribution networks and the latest in communications technology. Xinhua PR
Newswire also provides targeting and measurement services in Asia. Visit
http://www.xprn.com for further information.
About Xinhua Finance Limited
Xinhua Finance Limited is China's premier financial services and media
company, listed on the Mothers board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange
(symbol: 9399). The Company provides financial news and information, as well
as a broad array of financial products and services unique to the China
markets. Xinhua Finance provides real time coverage of Chinese and Asian
equity markets, delivering an integrated platform of China-specific indices,
financial news feeds, credit ratings, and investor relations services to
global financial institutions and re-distributors via leased line, Internet,
and satellite technology. Founded in 1999, the Company is headquartered in
Hong Kong and has 21 offices and 19 news bureaus across Asia, Australia, North
America and Europe.
For more information, see http://www.xinhuafinance.com .
For more information, please contact:
Jenny Hu, Marketing Manager,
Xinhua PR Newswire
Tel: +86-10-6515-9449
Fax: +86-10-6515-7668
Email: jenny.hu@prnewswire.com
SOURCE Xinhua PR Newswire
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Related links:
http://www.xinhuafinance.com
http://www.xprn.com
CONTACT:
Jenny Hu, Marketing Manager of Xinhua PR
Newswire, +86-10-6515-9449, or fax, +86-10-6515-7668, or
jenny.hu@prnewswire.com
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