SYDNEY — Former Honner MD Paul Cheal is joining Deb Camden to expand the Communication Dividend analytics solution.

Cheal becomes managing partner and CEO of the Communication Dividend, which was launched by founder and chief intelligence officer Camden in 2018. The offering aims to ensure that all communication and PR metrics that matter across an organisation can be seen in one platform – providing a single secure, real-time view of performance.

Cheal comes aboard after leaving Honner 12 months ago, following almost a decade with the corporate and financial consultancy. He has also launched 3CPR for independent consulting support for corporates and agencies.

“Effective measurement and evaluation remains elusive for much of the communication profession, despite extensive academic research and literature on the topic,” said Cheal. “This is especially true for agencies, who more often than not lack time, budget and access to data to do meaningful measurement beyond traditional media.

“Without measurement and evaluation, agencies struggle to truly demonstrate the impact of their work, yet this is the critical question clients ask. With the rapid pace of change and increasing breadth of the communication activity being undertaken by agencies, there’s never been a more important time and opportunity to prove our value.”

Clients of the Communication Dividend include QIC and global engineering consultancy, ABB. Camden added that there has long been a missing link between PR and communication and the organisations they serve.

“At the beginning, middle and end of the day, we’re all about linking communication value to business or organisational value,” added Camden. “Most of all, we want to support agencies and their clients to understand their communication dividend — the ultimate value of communication and PR efforts.”