Publicists Pump Up Value of Buzz

Don't Believe The Hype

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Earlier this month, as Vancouver residents rioted in the wake of the Canucks' loss in the Stanley Cup finals, a man and woman kissed on the pavement, flanked by riot cops, as a photojournalist snapped their picture. The photo appeared on websites and in newspapers around the world, bringing sudden publicity to the kissing couple.

Carl Bialik at wsj.com has a surprisingly controversial question: How much was the publicity worth?

For decades, many publicists have translated clients' news coverage into dollar figures, with a simple rule of thumb: A newspaper article is worth as much as a newspaper ad of the same size. Similarly, 30 seconds of television news coverage is seen as comparable to a 30-second ad. Some public-relations specialists, reasoning that news coverage carries greater weight with consumers than paid advertising, put a news article's value at three times an equivalent-size ad.

But other public-relations professionals and academics have railed against making these calculations.

Publicity, they say, has different goals than advertising and shouldn't be measured in the same way.

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