Sep 8, 2026 · 44 min · 13 segments
A professor who built his entire career on communication measurement almost couldn't answer the question that started it all. Professor Jim Macnamara joins Embracing Marketing Mistakes to explain why…
Jim MacnamaraGuestChris NortonHostSo, so you actually used the, the worst thing [laughs] that's happened to your work to craft your entire career, which is amazing.
Why did you feel that you couldn't justify the impact of what you'd done? 'Cause you're right, a lot of people try and track everything down to the Nth degree.
Like, I, I started my first job and we used to measure, um, key messages, and size of article, and AVE, the, the nat- the swear word in the PR industry.
And then I'd, I'd put it into a spreadsheet and you'd prepare this quite detailed a- an- analysis.
So how, how, how do you think things have moved on now, that way you can literally get down to the, the nitty-gritty and, and measure business impact?
Well, we're still in the process of getting there, I think, because, uh, I mean, the real problem with what you talk about, and I did the same thing, uh, and many practitioners still do, is we measure what we call outputs.
So we measure all the things we do, and when we measure, uh, media publicity, volume, impressions, reach, share of voice, they're all outputs.
They are not what's in the minds of our target audiences and our target markets.
And still today, a lot of the industry, whether it's advertising or PR, is still measuring outputs.
And so what we're doing in AMEC and, uh, what I've been involved in for many years is pushing people to look at measuring outcomes.
We're talking outcomes, we mean how have you changed awareness? How have you changed attitude? Have you converted people to, to, uh, in- making inquiries, to subscribing, to registering, to buying a product, to going to a showroom? How...
So, so you actually used the, the worst thing [laughs] that's happened to your work to craft your entire career, which is amazing.
Why did you feel that you couldn't justify the impact of what you'd done? 'Cause you're right, a lot of people try and track everything down to the Nth degree.
Like, I, I started my first job and we used to measure, um, key messages, and size of article, and AVE, the, the nat- the swear word in the PR industry.
And then I'd, I'd put it into a spreadsheet and you'd prepare this quite detailed a- an- analysis.
So how, how, how do you think things have moved on now, that way you can literally get down to the, the nitty-gritty and, and measure business impact?
Well, we're still in the process of getting there, I think, because, uh, I mean, the real problem with what you talk about, and I did the same thing, uh, and many practitioners still do, is we measure what we call outputs.
So we measure all the things we do, and when we measure, uh, media publicity, volume, impressions, reach, share of voice, they're all outputs.
They are not what's in the minds of our target audiences and our target markets.
And still today, a lot of the industry, whether it's advertising or PR, is still measuring outputs.
And so what we're doing in AMEC and, uh, what I've been involved in for many years is pushing people to look at measuring outcomes.
We're talking outcomes, we mean how have you changed awareness? How have you changed attitude? Have you converted people to, to, uh, in- making inquiries, to subscribing, to registering, to buying a product, to going to a showroom? How...
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