.jpg)
LONDON—A new industry study from the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), reveals a bullish picture of growth prospects, with 74% of AMEC members reporting stronger revenue growth than 12 months ago.
AMEC members are also confident the growth story will continue in the coming year, with almost a quarter forecasting growth in excess of 10%.
The World Media Intelligence & Insights study also finds that recent industry consolidation in the media intelligence sector on a worldwide basis is thought to create more opportunities than pose threats.
Most AMEC members expect the recent wave of consolidation in the measurement industry to either generate new business opportunities (48%), or have no impact on business (29%). The majority of AMEC members believe their business is well-placed to cope with the consequences of consolidation (70%). Only 12% feel that industry consolidation poses any level of threat to their business.
The majority (64%) also think the recent level of consolidation will continue in the coming year.
In another key finding, measurement is now being taken seriously by more PR firms than ever before. The study showed that 86% of PR firms now recognise the importance of measurement and analytics, compared with 72% a year ago. Four out of five AMEC members believe PR consultancies are increasingly building measurement services into their overall client offer.
The vast majority of PR agency members (89%) within AMEC also agree that measurement has been identified as a key business priority for their firm in the coming year.
AMEC’s plan to develop a new suite of integrated metrics this year was also seen as being of importance, with 71% of respondents agreeing it will help to cut through the confusion about metrics which exists in the marketplace. The metrics initiative will be to be a major feature of AMEC’s International Summit in Stockholm this week, is seen as a key step to finally making measurement a fundamental part of every PR programme (55%).
"I was pleased to see the real confidence from company leaders supported by the knowledge that media measurement is now being seen by business leaders as a must-have in their fight to build and protect corporate and brand reputation,” said Jeremy Thompson, chairman of AMEC and CEO of Gorkana Group. "We were also pleased to see the strong support in the survey for AMEC’s new initiative to simplify metrics."
Other key findings from the study:
Two in three AMEC members agree that clients and stakeholders are putting increasing emphasis on insights gleaned from monitoring media (65%).
The rapid growth in social media measurement activity continues, with 73% of AMEC member companies reporting an increase in their social media measurement business.
There was strong support for AMEC’s work in education, with 95% agreeing that AMEC has a critical role to play in educating the market about the importance of measurement through its Global Education Programme; and 77% wanting AMEC to play an active role in educating the market on the importance of measurement.
Half of all members (50%) agree that access to content is now a major issue in the countries they work in – a similar proportion to the 2014 survey (52%).
More than one in four client-facing AMEC members say that all/a majority (27%) of their clients still insist on an AVE score. The survey shows that demand for AVEs is strongest in particular geographies, including Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
.tmb-135x100.jpg)
