NEW YORK—Ketchum has partnered with Omnicom marketing research agency The Modellers to create a new global marketing analytics offering. The data provided by Ketchum and The Modellers will quantify for clients the dollar-value return on their public relations investment and help them determine the portion of their marketing budget that should be allocated to public relations to maximize the effectiveness of their programs.

The Modellers is a leader in applying analytics and predictive modeling to marketing challenges. The firm is best known for its work on ROI, marketing-mix modeling, product and line optimizations, pricing, brand strategy, and segmentation in the technology, CPG, financial services, pharmaceutical, entertainment, automotive, advertising and PR, and travel and tourism industries.

The two firms will offer products and services that enable clients to assign a value to the ROI of public relations efforts, including marketing-mix modeling, brand equity driver analysis and discrete choice models, offered in addition to the Ketchum Global Research & Analytics suite of measurement tools, which include Zocalo Social Intelligence, Brandbuilder, Media Optimizer and Target Insights Panels.

The partnership will be led by David Rockland, partner and managing director, Ketchum Global Research & Analytics; Mary Elizabeth Germaine, senior VP, Ketchum Global Research & Analytics; and Jeff Brazell, CEO of The Modellers.

According to Rockland, "While our counterparts in advertising, customer relationship management and some of the other marketing communication disciplines have had the ability to quantifiably measure their work for some time, PR agencies didn't have a clear path forward until the Barcelona Principles were introduced in 2010. With this partnership, we are now able to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of programs we're executing on behalf of our clients relative to other marketing disciplines.”