After years of being in the media monitoring and evaluation business, I still find it difficult to understand why PR agencies insist on selling their 'analytical' services. I cannot stress how absurd this is: does your accounting department perform an audit?

We have been involved in a marathon of a pitch process for a client in a rather specialized industry. While it is a 3-way pitch, our fiercest competition comes from a PR agency! The fact that the client is even considering a PR agency (oh they call themselves whatever they want, marketing communication, public affairs, bla bla bla.. -- at the end of the day, as far as actual work needed for this client, it's mostly media relations with a bit of advertorials) is rather curious.

While one can understand that clients don't fully appreciate the difference between a communication evaluation agency and a public relations shop, it is harder to forgive when a client demonstrates a thorough understanding of what the evaluation reports should include and exclude.

No one in the industry here seems to see anything wrong with this picture and I am beginning to wonder if it's just me who feels that way.

Let us ask this differently then. If media evaluation companies were to start competing with PR agencies for PR briefs, would the client even notice?