Metrics and Research

Media Audits
How does the media report on your company?
Are there some reporters who are always negative?
How do your competitors get covered? Your industry?
Who regularly gets quoted as an industry expert?

Through media intelligence gathering and media audits, Birnbach Communications can help you assess the media, to learn about your perceived strengths and weaknesses, and to identify strategies that support your business objectives. By closely monitoring national media, identifying appropriate reporters and relevant trends among key reporters, we can recommend strategies that achieve your short- and long-term business objectives. We develop a strategic and meaningful list of recommendations (that go beyond, "you should talk to the media a bit more").

We can develop monthly, quarterly or annual reports that compare you to your competitors, in terms of media coverage and perception.

We can conduct research to evaluate competitors’ business strengths and weaknesses to better prepare you to launch a new product or to respond to a competitor’s new product. We can also assess the media's reaction to issues critical to your company, whether it's a reaction to trade with China or perception of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) protests.
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Trend Analysis
We take an analyst's approach to the media: we closely monitor major media to determine key trends being covered and interview them as much as possible about stories they're following. We evaluate not just the stories – like wireless networking – but the approaches being used (backlash against the Bluetooth standard).

And then we combine that with a look at macro media issues, such as media consolidation or closings, layoffs, new programs, the amount of ad pages – because that affects what journalists refer to as a the "news hole," the amount of pages allocated for editorial coverage. (According to the Magazine Publishers Association, www.magazine.org, the industry average for the proportion of advertising to editorial copy has been 1:1. The implication: every additional advertising dollar increases the amount of editorial space; every decrease in spending decreases the amount of editorial.)

We compile the information in our TrendReport, which arms clients with topical trend ideas that enable us, through brainstorms, to determine ways clients might be able to generate coverage based on these trends.
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