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If you’re anything like me, you have probably wondered what makes PR different, especially when it comes to other marketing communications fields like journalism, advertising, and marketing. As a marketing major with a public relations minor, I am only just now learning the difference. In fact, before I took on my PR minor, I had interviewed a woman who works in public affairs for a project that was supposed to be centered around a career in my area of study. (Mind you, my area of study was just in marketing at the time.) I mistakenly thought that working in public relations was in the same boat as working in marketing, and while it technically is, these two fields are still very different especially when it comes to their end goals…

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…