When I first heard about the Barcelona Principles, I automatically thought of the Cheetah Girls dancing down the streets of Spain singing, “You gotta strut like you mean it, free your mind!”[1] It turns out that the reason these guidelines are titled ‘Barcelona Principles’ is because they were created by PR professionals who were meeting in Barcelona. These professionals from 33 different countries were all there for a summit hosted by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication in 2010. In the end, they left with seven principles that still serve as the framework for effective communication campaign measurement today.
PR industry professionals have since updated these principles in both 2015 and 2020. Essentially, the Barcelona Principles are all about setting goals, focusing on outcomes instead of outputs, moving away from using advertising value equivalents (AVEs calculate value based on advertising cost, which is a no-no), valuing social media, considering qualitative and quantitative measurements, etc.[2] While these principles are not required and/or mandated (many PR professionals do not actually follow them), they are still good practices to have.
Now, you’re probably asking, “What does all of this mean and how does it apply to me?” Well, PR practitioners, this is important because these principles set the stage for how one is supposed to measure and evaluate their campaigns in this industry. If you are incorrectly measuring the success of your campaign, your campaign could be ineffective, and you could be inaccurately reporting the effects on your audience. This would affect your credibility, your reputation, and your job. These guidelines are set aside to aid you in properly evaluating and analyzing the results of your campaigns so that you can properly assess what worked and what did not work. This all goes on to assist you in becoming a better PR practitioner, so you can strut like you mean it!
[1] The Cheetah Girls – Strut. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://genius.com/The-cheetah-girls-strut-lyrics
[2] Barcelona Principles 2.0. (2019, April 15). Retrieved from https://www.prnewsonline.com/barcelona-principles-2-0/