A Media Person's Musings

Digital Aptitude: The Full Story

 This week Peppercom has launched the Digital Aptitude Test in the UK, an offering that's been in development for some time in conjunction with our colleagues in the U.S. 

The Digital Aptitude Test (DAT) is designed to show where organisations are hitting and missing with their digital communications. The DAT starts with a quantitative and qualitative survey that is given both vertically and horizontally throughout a company.  We take those results and look at where internal knowledge and perception gaps exist for clients.  We then have our analysts go through it from both a quantitative and qualitative angle to discover trends and disconnects in the internal perception of a company's digital presence.

 

Yesterday PR Week ran a story about the UK launch of the Digital Aptitude Test.  Unfortunately, the test was painted as a wholly quantitative tool, leaving out its main purpose (identifying internal knowledge and perception gaps), the large volume of qualitative analysis involved in a Digital Aptitude Test project, the checklist that results from implementing the test, and the analytical and interpretive work of multiple communications professionals involved in the process.

What PR Week failed to report was that at the end of the process, the company not only gets an overall score, but they also get:

--subscores that measure the internal perception of the volume and ease-of-access to content on the site (information management); participatory tools that allow visitors to interact with one another and representatives of the company and provide feedback (communication management); and how the company provides support both in terms of financial and human resources for digital initiatives (resource allocation)

--qualitative analysis of the areas of greatest disconnect within the company and synthesis of open-ended answers on the test.

--a checklist of tangible items that need to be fixed within an organization to move the needle with the company's digital presence, based on where these internal gaps are perceived.

We envision this process, in many ways, as an hourglass approach.  By that, I mean we take a complicated qualitative phenomenon like internal perception, measure it through a largely quantitative survey tool, and then build on layers of analysis from experts on the Peppercom team.

After the survey results are in, we have a quantitative researcher who not only assigns the overall score, but likewise, the information management, communication management, and resource allocation scores for a company; the amount of deviation in answers along vertical and horizontal lines; and other pertinent statistics from the results.

In addition, qualitative analysis of the trends is provided by Peppercom's Director of Customer Insights, Sam Ford.  Sam was involved in the design of the Digital Aptitude Test with the Peppercom team for the past year.  He joined our staff full-time this summer from MIT, where he was previously managing the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium, a media studies research group. 

Sam is a qualitative researcher with a Master's in media studies from MIT who taught multiple courses at the university.  In addition to his work at Peppercom, he remains a practicing academic and is currently working on book projects involving the state of the daytime serial drama in the U.S. and the concept of "spreadable media."

Finally, a team of PR professionals vet the quantitative and qualitative analysis, working with our researchers to come up with the checklist of internal gaps and areas of improvement to be sure that those areas identified are actionable within the industry and relate directly to issues with impact on a company's communication strategy.

PRWeek unfortunately failed to see the breadth and depth of this offering and asked a digital professional and a fellow PR professional for their comments based on less than half of the real facts. So here is my response to their comments:

For the Digital professional in the story who noted his concerns about a quantitative test to assess the effectiveness of a digital strategy, we want to note that the purpose of this test is to identify perception among one key audience--employees.  This test is designed to help companies close internal gaps in digital knowledge and communication processes in order to optimize their digital communication strategy, not to objectively measure a digital strategy's success with external constituents.

Likewise, for the PR professional who emphasized that a survey could not replace a PR expert's advice, we couldn't agree more.  The test itself is just the beginning of a deep analysis for us that involves the whole team of PR professionals mentioned above.

 

Luckily I have my blog which gives me the opportunity to publicly respond. This is the good side of the digital world but only one part of it for us at Peppercom. We took the test ourselves and are starting to address the areas where we found gaps. If you have any questions about the Digital Aptitude Test, visit our site for the tool at http:/www.digitalaptitudetest.com

Too Little Too Late

The current media brouhaha revolves around two of the UK's leading, not to mention highly remunerated, broadcast personalities - Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. Ross hosts a late night chat show (Letterman-style) and Brand is a stand-up comedian and actor who recently burst onto the Hollywood scene starring in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The two recorded a sketch where they phoned the answer-machine of one of the UK's well-loved veteran actors Andrew Sachs (most famous for his portrayal of Manuel the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers) and leave a trail of obscene messages. The motivation can be seen at the BBC’s web site. The content included the fact that Brand had enjoyed a sexual relationship with Sachs' granddaughter.

 This has resulted in over 18,000 complaints lodged with the BBC. The very surprising fact about the whole situation was that the lewd, unnecessary and unfunny sketch  had been pre-recorded and had been passed for broadcast by a production team. Usually gaffes of this nature happen in live broadcasts but this incident was totally preventable.

So the mistake was made. What did the BBC do? 'Nothing' is the answer. They stayed quiet while the two protagonists also stayed quiet giving the impression that no one gave a damn. This just added fuel to the media's fire. What could have been an embarrassing news clip has escalated onto front page news and culminated in the Prime Minister demanding that the BBC (an organisation largely funded by tax payer's money) give some answers and take some action.

Had the BBC immediately issued a statement saying they were sorry and looking into the situation then they would have definitely averted the storm. Waiting for days to take any sort of action is at best foolhardy and worst unprofessional. It appears they laid the blame solely at  Ross and Brand's doors leaving them to make personal apologies (too little too late).

The BBC took action today, responding to the media pressure by suspending Ross and Brand. As for Andrew Sachs, like a true professional, he responded by speaking to the media, telling them the facts and behaving with dignity and transparency. The BBC should take a leaf out of his book.

The Importance of Good Advice

 Today ex-popster and general C-list celebrity Kerry Katona appeared on This Morning- the UK's popular morning chat show. She was promoting her new programme "Kerry Katona - Whole Again" which follows her going through various plastic surgery procedures to remodel her body including a breast reduction and liposuction. Kerry is well known in the tabloid press for being a girl of excess - to say the least. She has been reported as having a cocaine addiction and has been in and out of rehab. So when she appeared on TV this morning it was no real surprise when she started off the interview slurring her words. She was clearly under the influence of something. When the interviewers pointed this out she got very defensive claiming strong medication to help her sleep was to blame.

It must have been obvious to the production team that she was incapable of giving a good interview when she arrived at the studio. But the temptation of a TV scoop like this was clearly too much and the interviewers went in for the kill. It was car crash TV. Clearly Kerry had no strong advisers on staff - preferring the company of her leeching boyfriend who is her (self-styled) manager. Her long-time publicist Max Clifford (who irritatingly is often called a PR guru) was nowhere to be seen. I am sure if she had decent advisors this sorry spectacle could well have been avoided. She could well be dropped by her biggest sponsor Iceland as she clearly doesn't represent their wholesome "Mums go to Iceland" brand. This mum is going to the local off-licence instead.