There are some acronyms that we become so familiar with that we no longer know who originated them. Indeed, students aren’t even expected to credit the source in their work.
Think about the following: PEST or SWOT. Then there are models and concepts that become disassociated from their originators over time. How about the Diffusion of Innovation, Nudge or SMART objectives? Even if we don’t know whose idea it first was, or even the name of the model or concept, we’ll recognise a diagram or figure.
Sometimes an idea is ‘in the air’. Then it may develop with the input of several different people or organisations, none of whom can claim exclusivity.
The prompt for this article is a Twitter thread, so I will attribute its beginnings. Jesper Andersen tweeted:
Who coined the acronym PESO originally? We all know @ginidietrich drew up the model that has become the standard, but who came up with the first notion of adding Shared to PEO?
Jesper Andersen (Twitter, 20 June 2020)
My answer has always been: the late Don Bartholomew. As Vice President of digital research at Fleishman Hillard, on 12 May 2010, he referred to a PESO model as a metrics matrix that the agency used.
This source, and my long-standing insistance on Don being credited, is acknowledged by Richard Bailey in his handy briefing on PESO at PR Academy Insights from September 2019.
The four-by-four grid that Don produced (as used at Fleishman Hillard) indicates evaluation metrics for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned (PESO) categories under their intended effect: Exposure, Engagement, Influence and Action.
I used to follow Don’s blog, MetricsMan as he was one of the leading figures discussing measurement and evaluation at this time (along with Katie Delahaye Paine). It is likely that the idea of PESO was being discussed among members of the Measurati (a nickname that Katie attributes to Don).
The Fleishman Hillard development of PESO built (with acknowledgement) on the use of earned, owned and paid as a popular way of categorising – and integrating – media channels, as defined by Sean Corcoran of Forrester in December 2009.
At this point we should step back to the early 1990s and the work of Don E Schultz (who died earlier this month) for pioneering the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications as PESO is tactical channel execution of this strategy.
A McKinsey Quarterly article in November 2010 identifed Paid, Earned and Owned as traditional media types, with Hijacked and Sold presented as new media types.
There were many other iterations of the overlapping, multi-media concept – such as the Edelman Media Clover Leaf launched in 2011 and later developed into the Edelman Cloverleaf.
Another model I remember sharing in my academic and professional teaching is the Social Media Brandsphere by Brian Solis, published in August 2011. He talks about going beyond the acronym POEM (paid, owned and earned media) to categorise media into five key segments: Paid, Promoted, Owned, Shared, and Earned.
In September 2011, Gini Dietrich wrote a blog post: Owned vs. Earned Media: Measuring the ROI, where earned involved “continuing traditional media relations, but also building relationships with bloggers and social media influencers”. She pointed out the connection with evaluation: “It’s much easier, now, to measure our earned media efforts”.
Likewise, Jeremiah Owyang working with Altimeter’s Rebecca Lieb offered a tripartite approach in the Convergence Model of Paid, Owned and Earned Media in July 2012.
My recollection is that by this time, the focus of the graphic models had shifted away from the measurement purpose and underlying metrics of Don Bartholomew’s PESO model. Instead emphasis was on use of digital tools.
In June 2013, Gini Dietrich presented the first iteration of the PESO model you may recognise in a blog post: The Four Different Types of Media. It was followed in August by the post Mobile Marketing: Use the Four Media Types in Promotion, where she talked about integrating paid, earned, owned, and shared. This version of the PESO model gained increased recognition in 2014 following publication of the book Spin Sucks.
A refreshed model graphic and process was published by Gini in February/March 2020 – with Reputation added to the centre. This image is shared via Creative Commons and credited to Spin Sucks. Coming full circle, in April, Gini posted PR Metrics: What to Measure in a PESO Model Program setting out metrics for each of the PESO categories from a PR perspective.
Sadly Don Bartholomew died in June 2015 – he was then Senior VP, Digital and Social Media Research at Ketchum. Don had served as a member of the IPR Measurement Commission for some time and was Vice Chair of the Social Media Measurement Group for AMEC. His final MetricsMan blog post talked about the evolution of social media metrics and measurement. He created the AMEC Social Media Measurement Framework with Richard Bagnall, viewed as a breakthrough for the industry.
Although Don shared an updated model reflecting the PESO “integrated channel metrics approach”, he did so with a caveat.
As campaigns become increasingly integrated across media types it makes sense to also reflect this integrated view in measurement. Ideally, measurement should reflect a similar level of integration as the campaign or program being measured. As we measure performance from the four channels, we should keep in mind what we really would like to understand is how the channel efforts amplify or build on each other.
Don Bartholomew (MetricsMan, 9 June 2014)
A book based on Don Bartholomew’s blog posts was published posthumously. MetricsMan: It doesn’t Count Unless you Can Count It
AMEC has continued to produce updated resources to support measurement and evaluation – including the Integrated Evaluation Framework (visualisation credit to Lewis) and a supporting Taxonomy, developed by Professor Jim Macnamara.
This article has tracked a decade of PESO from its measurement origins in 2010, through the latest version of the Spin Sucks model and ongoing work at AMEC. In a few weeks (8-9 July), the 2020 AMEC Virtual Global Summit on Measurement takes place. Presentations and discussion will explore innovations relating to artificial intelligence, machine learning and return on effort of business outcomes.
I look forward to tracing these next steps. I also intend to explore some of the many other measurement stories – including the longer history of evaluation in public relations – in future PRConversations articles.
Photo by Miguel A. Amutio on Unsplash
What an excellent piece Heather. Sorry it’s taken me a few days to comment, but I felt it important to weigh in here and figured better late than never. Don was a good friend of mine as well as a professional colleague through our work at AMEC and our respective professional careers. We were very close – Don and I collaborated on some work matters and even held exploratory conversations on the possibility of him joining my old business Metrica to run our US operations. The fact that it never happened is something that I still regret to this day. When I was asked by AMEC to chair its social media measurement group and tasked with devising a new social media measurement framework to compliment the original valid metrics frameworks, Don was the obvious choice to be the vice chair of the group. We all leaned on his intellect and intelligence greatly.
The term ‘measurati’ first came up in or before 2012. There is certainly a photo of the ‘measurati’ taken I believe in April 2012 in Washington DC while enjoying a few post event drinks after (another!) measurement conference. We all think that it was Don who coined the term and possibly it was that night. Whether it was then or earlier, it certainly stuck and is still used. It was a great fun night when many industry colleagues proved that you didn’t have to be boring to work in data analytics. I’ve tonight tweeted a copy of the photo for those interested to see it: https://twitter.com/richardbagnall/status/1278033992940507136?s=20
In the photo are Don, Priya Ramesh, Margot Savell, myself, Johna Burke, Dan Schaible, Katie Paine, Shonali Burke and others. I think the camera that took this photo may have belonged to Shonali, but like many things from 8 years ago memories are a little hazy!
As to when the word ‘PESO’ and ‘PESO model’ first came about, I couldn’t put an exact date on it. It was certainly pre 2009 – I’m clear on this as the sale of Metrica is such a clear point of reference in my mind – life before sale and life post-sale. It involved different offices and, as those who have gone through a similar process will understand, a massive cultural shift as well. I clearly remember returning to Metrica’s London office in the pre 2009 era and talking to my colleagues about what I’d discovered on my most recent conversations on my latest USA trip. I suspect it was probably round about 2007. I definitely was talking to Don back then about our mutual client Dell. Dell had commissioned Metrica to undertake its global monitoring and evaluation service back in 2005 for a three year contract. This had quickly become a lot more complicated and challenging with Dell’s experience of what must have been basically the world’s first social media crisis which came to be known as ‘Dell Hell’. This opened many people’s eyes to the reputational challenges thrown up by social media. Don and I discussed this at length and I would have heard the term PESO from him. Before them I think I’d been using POEM, but I remember I liked the imagery that the term PESO suggested to me as well as it being a more suitable acronym.
Don did a huge amount of the work for AMEC’s social media measurement group and his thinking helped us develop the two frameworks that were launched in 2013. Here’s a video of the launch of the SMM frameworks from the AMEC global summit in Madrid https://youtu.be/XEy_dunq5Dw and here is Don describing its development in his own words on MetricsMan, his excellent blog https://metricsman.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/a-new-framework-for-social-media-metrics-and-measurement/ In this post, Don explains the terms ‘model’ and ‘framework’.
He says: “When we use the word model, we are referring to a representation of a system, in this case social media. In the original Valid Metrics Framework, the model used was the traditional sales funnel. A framework adds additional dimensions to the model and is operationalized with metrics…”
Don goes on to describe the social media measurement *frameworks* as *models* and basically uses the word interchangeably saying: “The model we developed is derivative of the categories chosen by The Conclave (Note: Richard Bagnall and I also participate in The Conclave) to organize social media metrics and definitions. We took a slightly different perspective on the front end of the model and reordered the back-end to create this model for our new framework.”
Two versions of AMEC’s social media measurement framework were created, one detailing how it would work for program, channel and business metrics, and the other showing how it would work for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned media. We later provided a user guide which can still be seen including the original frameworks as well: https://www.social-media-measurement-framework.org/
Don and I were never content with the social media measurement frameworks as a separate approach to the original valid metrics frameworks (https://www.slideshare.net/ArunSudhaman/amecs-new-valid-metrics), not least because communications should be conducted and measured in an integrated manner. With two different concepts in circulation and being referenced it was clear that the industry could easily become confused. He and I shared a desire to replace both with one integrated version and discussed our ideas for doing this and the importance of brining the unified industry on this journey with us. Sadly by now Don was not at all well and was unable to work with the AMEC team on the Integrated Evaluation Framework, but as I led the process I made sure that it was true to his thinking and great skill – to make the things that can appear complex, to be digestible and understandable instead. We shared a passion for keeping evaluation robust, but relevant and always resisted the urge to over complicate things for our anyone’s academic pleasure at the expense of commercial relevance. The Integrated Evaluation framework is based on standard business process evaluation techniques which have been in use for a long time. As your article says it had significant input from Professor Jim Macnamara but many others too, including academics, practitioners and evaluation vendors from all over the world. It was endorsed by a wide variety of international trade associations which was important as Don and I both realised that to help break the education deadlock, it is critical that the industry can speak with a single consistent voice. The integrated Evaluation Framework has its own microsite at http://www.amecorg.com/amecframework where its available in 20 languages as an educational resource. It’s not prescriptive, but designed to be used as a guide for different organisations to use as a starting point from which to tailor their own specific approach and framework. I paid tribute to Don’s contribution in the acknowledgements on the site here https://amecorg.com/amecframework/home/acknowledgements/ saying “Finally I’d like to pay tribute and give special mention to friend of many in the global communications measurement community, Don Bartholomew, who sadly passed away last year. Don was author of the respected Metrics Man blog, and was SVP, digital and social media research at Ketchum. Don worked closely with me and the AMEC team on the development of many of our best educational resources including the social media measurement frameworks. His thinking has been instrumental to our success and I have tried at all times to keep his approach at the front of mind – to make a tool that is sophisticated and meaningful but not impenetrable or too complex to use. I believe we have got the balance right and hope that Don would think so too proud that his legacy lives on.”
To answer then any questions about which version should be used it’s clear – there is now just one framework that AMEC recommends which is the Integrated Evaluation Framework. We encourage organisations to use it as a base from which to build their own approach.
So, a few points in summary. Did Don invent the term PESO? I don’t know and to be honest, I somehow doubt it. Did I first hear the term from him? Yes, in all likelihood. When would that have been? At some point between 2006 and 2009. Who first coined the term PESO model? I have no idea but rather suspect that it was a term that originated from multiple people and thought leaders rather than any one person. Was Don’s thinking instrumental in bringing it to life as one of the first early adopters of the term and how to measure it? Absolutely – as the work that you reference from his days at FH clearly show.
Don was a great thinker, a friend to many and his loss is still felt acutely to this today.
Thank you for indulging me in what I originally thought would be a short comment but has turned into a rather length reminisce. I was there with Don as we all tried to work out how to measure social and digital media effect and I hope my recollections and reflections are of interest.
Warmly,
Richard Bagnall,
Co-managing partner CARMA International
Chair, AMEC
PS I should have added that as a lasting tribute to Don and his amazing contributions to advancing the measurement and evaluation profession, AMEC renamed its highest honour, the Chairman’s award, as the Don Bartholmew Award for Outstanding Service to the communications measurement and evaluation industry shortly after he passed. The 2020 winner of this award will be unveiled at our annual summit and awards next week. Details here: https://amecorg.com/summits/2020-programme/
Heather thank you for writing this. Reading it is a wonderful trip down memory lane. I’ve always contended that we were doing Owned, Earned, Shared & Paid long before anyone started calling it PESO (which I dislike because it puts Paid first). I was a regular reader of your blog in the early days. I’m glad I found it again!
Sherrilynne – thank you for stopping by, and I remember our interactions, especially at my Greenbanana blog (where I haven’t posted for a while). I do agree over putting Paid first – although EOSP, OESP or ESOP (for example) probably not as memorable. I promise to do more writing this year on here and back at Greenbanana. I do miss it.
A fine piece of detective work!
I’m a fan of taking frameworks and models such as PESO and evolving them, but it’s also important for everyone to correctly attribute frameworks and models as they are evolved as they are hard created IP.
I hadn’t made the connection between Ginni Dietrich’s model and the ‘Measurati’s’ and AMEC’s work before. Lightbulb! 💡
Thank you Michelle. For me it is positive to see connections between different concepts and people over time. I like to encourage current practitioners, students and academics to evolve frameworks and models – whilst attributing those who have laid groundwork, even if we need to offer a critique of that. – Heather
Wholly agree.
Models and frameworks are there to simplify the complex and the best ones are the ones that make you think “why didn’t I develop that one.”, reflect, and then think, “I could add this, change this and make it work for me”. It’s my ambition to create a good one, one day. I’ve attempted a few…..
I’ve adapted PESO many times and I love the way it gets organisations to think about why the intersections fall between teams/depts/agencies/stools, get forgotten or underinvested in.
Heather, excellent , really enjoyable article and a great tracking the history of an idea and showing emergence at work.
Think it would be help in elaborating upon the emergence process and using the concept of memes to gain a richer appreciation of the term, its significance and adoption. .
You have sourced what seems to be the first of usage of the term ‘PESO Model’.
I had previously thought it was Gini Dietrich who had coined the term in her 2014 book ‘Spin Sucks’. Yet, in the book, although it features the familiar iconic diagram, there is no reference to the phrase ‘The PESO Model’.
I raised this with Gini during a recent webinar. She replied “… you’re right! The ingredients are all there, but we didn’t name it in the book. It was the process we used internally at my agency, but had never named it. As I wrote about it, my publisher asked me to hire a designer to create the graphic. But it never occurred to me to name it. Truth be told, had I known it was going to take over the industry like it has, I would have approached it a bit differently. You know, launched with a certification (instead of six years later), gotten it copyrighted (instead of three years later), and bought all of the PESO Model domains I could find. Alas…”
So, even though Don Bartholomew may have been first to christen the concept ‘the PESO Model’ clearly had limited usage otherwise Gini would have surely used it. (Neither is there is no evidence of it on Google Ngram (which only goes up to 2012) ).
Therefore, the meme ‘PESO Model’ only gained any wider use and traction post the ‘Spin Sucks’ book’s iconic imagery and where in captioning the diagram the term ‘The PESO Model’ would have been used, copied and shared and emerged as a meme.
So although you quite rightly record use of the concept dating back to the 2010, the significance of the meme ‘The PESO Model’ took off several years later.
This seems to be another example of talented people discovering an idea in isolation at a similar time, like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace with evolutionary theory.
Thanks again for a great read.
Thank you for your comments Andy. I wasn’t looking at the emergence process so much as situating the concept and its origins within the very active community involved in measurement and understanding development of digital communications.
As such it isn’t an example of people working in isolation and coming up with the same idea several years apart. Neither would I say that PESO is anything more than an acronym – and a handy mnemonic for a typlogy of channels.
Certainly Gini has developed the concept further with the graphic (in both its iterations) and supported this with explanations of its application (and recently accreditation). It’s a living thing rather than a self-replicating meme, I’d suggest.
Whether or not Gini was aware of Don’s earlier use of the acronym, most of us in the PR blogging world a decade ago were. It is important to acknowledge that, and how other individuals and organisations explored categorisation of new, emerging and traditional media. Also to consider the contribution that Don Bartholomew made through AMEC to improving measurement and evaluation practices in public relations. The history shows that PESO was part of that process.
An excellent article, thanks Heather, and as you mention, compliments Richard Bailey’s PR Academy briefing from last year. I know students have found value from that insight; many of the PG students will be using PESO to analyse specific campaigns as part of their summer dissertations, so will be sharing this.
That’s great to hear – the linkage to measurement and evaluation is critical of course.
Thank you Heather for researching, writing and sharing this wonderful history with all of us. Excellent review and reflection.
Excellent round-up. Although I’ve just realised I’ve been correctly crediting Don Bartholomew while erroneously citing Ketchum as I didn’t realise he’d done the work earlier.
Thanks Stuart. I did double check as I saw Richard Bailey had said Ketchum, but yes Don was at FH when the PESO metrics matrix was developed.
Really helpful overview. I can hear my students asking, so what one should we use? Which one is most effective? I’m going with AMEC integrated evaluation framework. I think there’s an opportunity to review situational analysis tools for PR too.
Thank you Grant. I think that’s a really interesting question that we should pose to students – what do they see as the strengths and limitations of each model?
It is important for students and practitioners to understand that models develop iteratively. The reasons why one comes to dominate are also worthy of reflection.
In terms of which is effective – of course these are generally tools. They have been developed out of practice, mostly by agencies or consultants. This suggests they’ve been tested and adapted to be of value in supporting planning and reporting performance with clients – and in-house teams once they are shared publicly.
There is also academic work – and Jim Macnamara is the foremost working in this area currently (in my opinon). As I understand it, the AMEC work (including the IEF and taxonomy) reflects both academic and practice experience.
However, I feel that they are mainly media/channel focused, and viewed through the lens of linear planning models.
I do agree with you about reviewing situational analysis tools. I’ve been looking at the various roles of research in planning processes. Next I will move onto methods by which data is analysed, including situational analysis and horizon scanning. I plan to write further on that work.
There are some very interesting developments in the European literature around evaluating intangibles (eg reputation and relationships), as well as more agile communications management methods. These may help get closer to measuring impact. There’s also scope for more work on measurement and evaluation in areas such as public affairs and corporate communications.
Also, for me, there’s not enough focus upstream on the inputs to improve efficiency and effectiveness (as well as management processes). Finally, I believe that ethical decision making is required in both planning models and the processes of monitoring, measuring, evaluating and managing performance indicators.
Again thank you for your comment. I’d love to hear about any discussions you have with students from sharing this article.
– Heather