Nardelli is back for more

Shifting gears (!) a little from my normal topics, I was interested to read about Bob Nardelli accepting a management post at Chrysler. You may remember ole' Bob as the guy who, while CEO of Home Depot, pissed off the shareholders by refusing to answer questions during the annual meeting and (more importantly) generating flat returns on the stock price. Known as an operations guy at GE, he mis-extended Home Depot into the wholesale market and lost traction again Lowes. After getting fired for all that, it was revealed that he had negotiated a nice $210 million severance package for himself.

All in all, not the greatest PR a guy could get. People spent the better part of a month flagellating the guy. I just assumed he'd buy a house in the Hamptons and do whatever really rich people do: sail a boat, marry a younger woman, whatever...don't get me wrong, it's not his fault Home Depot agreed to this monstrous severance package, he is certainly entitled to enjoy the fruits of his "labor".

But you have to give this guy credit, here is today at a press conference talking about his plans for turning around Chrysler. Quite a bold move for a guy with a bulls eye on his back. Of course, now, the only shareholder he has to deal with is Cerberus, a private equity firm.

Here is the Wall Street Journal's take on the deal:

Measuring Influence

I found this post by Roy Young on MarketingProfs (How Many Are You Reaching and Who Are They?) that I found interesting. I talk with a lot of marketing professionals about public relations. Often, the subject of measurement or benchmarks arises. Most often, the discussion revolves around traditional PR output like releases, case studies, placements and analyst reports. However, I always tie a proposed PR campaign to a company's sales goals, profitability target or overall valuation.

To me, whether or not you achieve the business case is the only true measurement of the effectiveness of a public relations campaign. Anything else smacks of insider navel gazing.

Now, marketers have spent a lot of time quantifying paid media for good reason. It's much easier to generate good data for a media buy or a direct mail campaign. It's easier to make a direct connection between one's actions and the movement of the needle. Certainly, one of driving forces behind the massive investment in online advertising over the past few years, has been the huge reams of data it generates.

However, as the online advertising machine bumps up against user generated communities, it becomes harder to draw a cause-effect relationship. As Roy says,

...for emerging media, you may have to be satisfied with qualitative measures of impact. At least for now. After all, if you have two readers of your blog, and those two readers have the first name of Steve (Balmer and Jobs), your blog may be far more influential than another blog on technology with thousands of readers.

Food for thought on a Monday morning!