Tips on Using Marketing Research

for Public Relations

Prepared by:
Gregory Kohs
Vice President









Public Relations Research
For the marketing research professional, working with Public Relations firms
is invigorating in several ways. PR clients are typically upbeat people, their
end clients come from varied and diverse industries, the survey topics are
often more fun than serious, and the market research practitioner can advise
PR clients as the research expert, leaving the promotional and
communication expertise to the client.


Why Should PR Firms Use Research

Generally, there are two classes of circumstances that would lead to
strong recommendations for marketing research.

(1) Research the environment. To be a successful PR firm, its
crucially important to understand the economic, political, legal,
regulatory, public opinion, social, cultural, technological, marketing,
and financial components of the organization youre working for.
1

This type of research can take place before a big pitch to a
prospective client, or in conjunction with a major repositioning with
an existing client. In either case, it helps the PR team make better
decisions about major or subtle directions, and frankly, makes the
PR firm look like it knows about the clients business problems and
its marketplace.

Its interesting to note that a 1994 study
2
by the International Public
Relations Association showed that 76% of American public
relations practitioners recognized that evaluation research of the
market environment is necessary; but only 16% said that they
frequently undertake research aimed at such evaluation.

Your PR firm may be talking the talk about evaluating your clients
and prospects business environment, but are you walking the
walk by actually budgeting for and conducting the necessary
research?

1
Treadwell, Donald & J ill B., Public Relations Writing: Principles in Practice, Sage Publications, 2005, p.100.
2
Public Relations Evaluation: Professional Accountability, International Public Relations Association, Gold Paper
No. 11, 1994.

76% of American
public relations
practitioners
recognize that
evaluation research
of the market
environment is
necessary; but only
16% said they
frequently undertake
research aimed at
evaluation.



(2) Research for ink. The most successful PR firms are the ones
that get the most mileage out of media support and favorable
exposure for their clients. One creative and powerful way to
capture the medias attention and get out the good news is to feed
the media with your message through the guise of public opinion
polling. Newspaper, radio, and television content editors are on
constant prowl for targeted, incisive information that not only
defines some of their subscribers, but is also interesting to a
broader audience. What better win-win solution than a market
survey that reveals the consumer or business sectors opinion
about whats important to them about the products or services that
your client just so happens to provide?

Here is one example of an enormously successful "research for ink"
study that ICR conducted for Manning, Selvage & Lee in 2003.
Their end client was Procter & Gamble's Prilosec OTC, which was
to be the first proton-pump inhibitor ever made available over the
counter to help consumers treat frequent heartburn. Based on a
previous ICR-conducted study ranking the top US heartburn cities,
MS&L orchestrated a late-summer promotional trek through the top
24 cities, challenging residents in each city to be screened for
frequent heartburn, learn about ways to reduce heartburn, and to
learn about the new Prilosec OTC treatment. As an incentive, the
fire department of the city whose residents did best in this
"BurnTown Challenge" won a big cash grant to buy new equipment.
The MS&L tour came armed with city-specific market research
data that ICR collected, mapped, and analyzed, and local
newspaper and television media ate it up. As an end result, the
campaign reached over 100 million people and Prilosec OTC
shortly became the #1 recommended treatment for frequent
heartburn. Did the ICR research make this all happen? No, not
alone -- but it's a choice example of the powerful results that can be
achieved when a PR firm teams up with ICR to make research for
ink work for them.




Its Important to Think Beyond a National Omnibus Survey

Frequently, we will receive calls from our PR clients asking for a cost
quote and timetable, specifically for running a study in the ICR
EXCEL omnibus survey. EXCEL is so powerful and reliable a
research solution, some of our clients are conditioned to thinking
about research exclusively as doing an omnibus. Thats
unfortunate, because the research objective should always
determine the most appropriate methodological approach, without a
preconceived bias that a national telephone omnibus is going to be
the best solution. A highly targeted audience (e.g., emergency room
nurses, high school science teachers, mothers who drive Volvos,
etc.) should be approached through a custom-sampled study, not an
omnibus. Likewise, some environment research objectives would
be better carried out by conducting 30 or 35 in-depth interviews with
carefully selected respondents, rather than 500 randomly screened
omnibus households. A PR firm can approach ICR with its research
objective, and we will recommend the very best research solution.

Think About Respondents When Designing Your
Questionnaire

We know that PR brainstorming sessions can produce lots of ideas,
many concepts to be tested, and handfuls of attitudes to measure.
Youre excited to get some headline findings behind these ideas.
Thats great. But dont try to make one survey question the Holy
Grail that will single-handedly shed light on all of these ideas,
concepts, and attitudes. The following is an example of a laborious
and complicated (first draft) question that we might receive from a
PR firm:

Which one of the following situations bothers you most about the Christmas
holiday?
- Having to shop for presents for people you hardly know
- Having to shop for presents for family members
- Deciding between an artificial tree or a natural tree
- Seeing my credit card bill in J anuary
- Hosting a holiday feast
- Struggling with traffic jams on the roads
- Finding things for my kids to do while theyre on winter break

As you can clearly see, this is a nightmarish question yet we see
them all the time! How would the average telephone respondent
The research
objective should
always determine
the most appropriate
methodological
approach.
Stop and review the
objectives that is,
ask whet theyre
REALLY trying to
measure.


listen to that question, thoughtfully manage all of those concepts,
and then give any kind of intelligent answer? What about
respondents who arent bothered by Christmas, or those who
dont celebrate Christmas at all? (Some clients might say, Well,
lets add two more answer choices for Im not bothered by
Christmas, and I dont celebrate Christmas, which would make the
question even worse!)

Thats when ICR steps in, asks the PR firm to stop and review the
objectives that is, ask what theyre REALLY trying to measure or
prove. We might find out that the PR goal is to show how much
consumers dread seeing their credit card bills after the holiday
shopping season. Well, a better way to ask about that is to simply
ask, How much do you dread seeing your credit card bills after the
holiday shopping season? If you then want to make some fun
comparisons, ask the alternatives one pair at a time, where the
respondent chooses the worst of two items.

The point is, read your surveys out loud to someone who hasnt
been in on your brainstorming sessions and has no idea what your
PR firm is trying to do for your client. If they cant understand or
keep up with your questionnaire, chances are that most of the
1,000 adults we end up surveying wont either.

How Many Are Enough?

Before we launch a marketing research study or public opinion
survey, were often asked by the PR client, How big should the
sample be? or How many people do we need to interview for the
results to be valid? Public relations firms are especially prone to
ask these questions, since they appreciate the value of research
for ink, but often dont understand sampling design issues. We
dont have a standard answer, because there is no universal
standard for sample sizes and error tolerance. It quite literally is a
subjective preference, based on custom, budget, and the
consequences of the findings.

Statisticians, media editors, and business stakeholders alike can
discuss and argue what is an appropriate sample size, and none
would be wrong, and all may be right. Depending on different
trades (epidemiology versus public relations, for example), you will


hear different minimum sample numbers. Likewise, depending on
different cultures, you will hear various minimum sample sizes -
often based on nothing more than a psychological comfort zone.
For example, in the United States, some media content providers
will now accept only consumer sample sizes of at least 400. Why?
Merely because findings that center near 50% of the sample
response have a margin of error of no more than +/- 5% (a nice
round number) at the 95% confidence level (another nice round
number). However, if you asked a pharmaceutical company if this
would be acceptable for the test of a new immunization treatment,
they might look at you in shock. In the case of pharmaceutical
research, the desired accuracy of a sample size might vary with
how much the resulting data will result in a life-or-death
consequence.

In other cases, smaller sample sizes would have to be gladly
accepted by the media or business stakeholders. For example, if a
study about the future of NASA were to be conducted among
American astronauts who have ever been in space, a sample size
of 35 would probably be considered quite impressive in its
coverage of the very limited and difficult-to-reach population
universe.

That being said, business organizations make very important
tactical and strategic decisions all of the time, based on research
data that covered only 100, or 50, or even 30 people. They may
take away directional learning from data that has a margin of error
of +/- 9% at the 90% confidence level. Indeed, the City of Austin,
Texas publicizes that the norm for sufficient statistical validity of
their water load research
3
for the City was indicated to be 90/10,
i.e., at the ninety percent confidence level, a maximum of ten
percent margin of error. Based on industry standards and
published experience for similar applications, the 90/10 criteria
could easily be achieved with a sample of only 100 respondents.
So, what has been working effectively for the City of Austin is
perhaps not sufficient enough for another client, or perhaps it is.
Again, neither is absolutely correct, and neither is absolutely wrong.
It is a matter of needs, budget, consequences, and preference.


3
Issue Paper: Peaking Factors and Peak Load Costs (Part 2), Section 5.0 Water Demand Monitoring Program,
City of Austin.


Cost is an important factor to consider when determining a sample
size. If the ideal sample size and design methodology dont fit a
budget or timeline, then trade-off decisions are going to be
necessary, some of which may compromise the quality and scope
of the research. In one example, by surveying 225 American
workers about retirement plans, ICR would achieve a sample
tolerance of:

* Margin of error no more than +/- 4.27% at the 80% level of confidence
* Margin of error no more than +/- 5.48% at the 90% level of confidence
* Margin of error no more than +/- 6.53% at the 95% level of confidence
* Margin of error no more than +/- 7.75% at the 98% level of confidence
* Margin of error no more than +/- 8.59% at the 99% level of confidence

If our client wished to pare down these margins of error in half, then
the sample would have to increase four-fold, to 900 respondents,
and costs would nearly triple. Which of these levels of confidence
is necessary? In our opinion, it is hardly objectionable to state
that all of our U.S. findings (based on total qualified respondents)
would be accurate (that is, reflect the true opinion of the entire
population which was sampled) to within 5.5 percentage points or
less, on at least 9 out of 10 independently sampled outcomes. If
this standard would be rejected by our client or the media, to the
preference of exclusively samples of 500, 900, 1,000, or more, one
could contend this would require a research solution that may be
unnecessarily large and unnecessarily expensive, considering the
survey topic was about financial investment matters, and not the
effects of a tainted pharmaceutical remedy on an at-risk patient
population. We recognize the challenge of overcoming industry-
specific customs and local best practices, but ICR would stand
behind this research as perfectly valid, within the tolerances
indicated above.

So, in summary, when we are asked, How many people do we
need to interview, we have to ask back: Whats your tolerance for
error, where do you want these findings to appear, and what are
the consequences of the findings? The next step is a meaningful
discussion.


This Is the Bottom Line

Every PR firm will bring their clients a slightly different philosophy, a
different approach, or a different set of core competencies. But one
factor should bolster any PR firms activities -- provide your clients
with knowledge-driven rather than assumption-driven information.
Our frequent client Euro RSCG Magnet may put it best:

Our approach to effective public relations infuses
research, from the planning stage to implementation to
measurement processes. In this way, [the team]
provides effective counsel and integrates research into
all facets of the public relations process.
4


With a strategy like that, a PR firm is more likely to generate and
sustain successful campaigns, and thats the bottom line.

For more information, please contact:

Gregory Kohs
Vice President
ICR
53 West Baltimore Pike
Media, PA 19063-5698
484-840-4369
gkohs@icrsurvey.com



4
Developing Effective Communication Strategies for the Blogosphere, Euro RSCG Magnet, 2005.