Spatial Access Solutions launches PR efficiency mapping tool 'PRizard'

The tool is meant for all practitioners of messaging, including marketers, brand managers, image consultants, PR agencies, and creative agencies developing new messaging strategies.

Marketing services audit and advisory company Spatial Access Solutions (SAS) has launched a new tool called 'PRizard', which aims to provide a scientific approach to measure results from PR-led activities.

It has been established that some brands are able to create a strong identity with the use of specific words. For example, when someone mentions 'magic', the first thing that comes to mind is Disney. PRizard will help brands define the apt keywords and dimensions for their messaging.

Discussing the idea behind launching this tool, Geetanjali Bhattacharjii, chief operating officer, Spatial Access Solutions, says, "We have always believed that we need to bring in accountability for marketing spends. While the PR industry has grown rapidly, the metrics for evaluation are restrictive in nature. So, it answers 'how do you effectively measure PR performance beyond volume of coverage and tone of content?'"

PRizard was conceived with a vision to bring control, direction and specificity to PR. The PR audit service is established on the premise that each of the variables within messaging need to be measurable -- be it the medium, vehicle, TG-fit, placement, cost, -- or most importantly, the messaging and its context.

The tool is meant for all practitioners of messaging, including marketers, brand managers, image consultants, PR agencies, and creative agencies developing new messaging strategies.

PRizard offers a neutral perspective on brand performance and can therefore, benefit both brands and agencies. For the agency, PRizard would be a welcome pitching tool, enabling agencies to establish a distinct messaging premise.

The tool covers all print and online media, and is completely automated and does not require human intervention.

Bhattacharjii shares a brief example of how this tool will work for a client:

A client will provide SAS with print and online coverage in a digital format. This could be sourced by SAS through a tracking agency, or provided by the client's PR Agency. The client defines company name, competitors, key messaging vocabulary, and other target words that it wishes to track. PRizard creates its dictionary of intelligent acronyms and useless words. It runs through the content and using sophisticated technology, builds semantic spaces in the context of the target words. It also determines from the data emerging clusters of vocabulary that could be opportunities or threats.

In the final analysis, PRizard will build semantic neighbourhoods, to understand how much of the messaging vocabulary is being picked up by the media. It will allow brands to decide 'Which words should I drop? Which should I increase? What do I need to take out from the competition? What should be the repeat rate for differentiated communication? Are the emerging Image Dimensions in line with desired objectives? What is the distance between Desired Perception and Realistic Media Deliveries of Image attributes?'

The tool works on the 'Proximity-Association' principle. Hence, if the word 'crunch' is repetitively used in close association to Kellogg's, consumers concur that Kellogg's is crunchy.

Spatial Access Solutions had also developed another tool 'PRowl' in 2010 that is being used on an ongoing monthly basis by one of the larger PR spenders in the country.

The challenge, Bhattacharjii shares, has been in realising the potential of PRizard as an 'image dimension assessment tool' -- a tool that can revolutionise the use of semantics in messaging vocabulary.

She thinks that the future of effective messaging lies in the ability to measure quality of messaging beyond subjective tone analysis, through unique vocabulary.

For the record, other similar existing tools in the market include corporate image analyst Cirrus and Tam India's PR monitoring service Eikona, set up in association with UK's Media Measurement.