Let's Gather Some Data

So, we all agree, I think, that companies should not slash their public relations budgets in a crisis. And we can all present logical, well thought-out arguments to support our belief. But what we lack--what we nearly always lack, as an industry--is hard empirical evidence.

But now we have a chance to gather some. Over the next few weeks, some clients are going to either fire their agencies or scale back dramatically. Wouldn't it be interesting to gather a list of those clients somewhere and compare their performance--stock price is probably the easiest measure--relative to industry averages. If we are right, those companies should underperform the market. We probably can't prove causation, but we can perhaps establish a compelling correlation.

I recognize I'm probably not the best person to gather all this information. Some agencies are going to be understandably nervous about sending a list of their account losses to a reporter covering the PR business. But this would be interesting assignment, perhaps for an academic (particularly one who understands statistics and regression analysis and all that good stuff better than I do).

If we are right about the stupidity of cutting communications during a crisis, at least the next time one rolls around we will have some hard evidence to support our arguments.

ADD: A couple of quick e-mail conversations with fellow bloggers has convinced me that maybe I could be the one to do this. So, if anyone is interested, and prepared to share client names (and if you have them stock symbols) e-mail me.