By Priya Ramesh (@newpr)
Last year at the PRSA International Conference in Orlando, I loudly voiced my rant against AVEs during Shonali Burke’s session on “A Field Guide to Measuring the Business of PR.” Katie Paine, PR industry’s reputable measurement guru who has been tirelessly fighting against the AVEs, also was present in the room. If you haven’t been following Katie’s efforts to change the PR industry’s perception of AVEs, read her blog here. I wish we started a signature campaign to “STOP AVEs” right then, but it’s not too late. Several people in the room came up to me and agreed that we, as PR pros, should take a stand against AVEs and translate our stand into real action. So I want to ask my fellow PR strategists, HOW MANY OF YOU ARE GOING TO ACTUALLY KILL AVEs ONCE AND FOR ALL?
Just to refresh our memories, here’s a definition of AVE from the Institute of Public Relations Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation:
“The calculation of space or time used for earned media (publicity or news content) by comparing it to the cost of that same space or time if purchased as advertising.” You should be cringing right now if you still use AVEs to show off your PR efforts. I have been in PR for the past nine plus years, and thanks to my foundation in technology and B2B, I could never get away with showing millions of impressions to my CEO as a measure of our PR activities. I relied on new customer acquisitions, increase in positive references from existing customers, new leads generated via corporate blog and websites as standards of measurement versus spending ungodly amount of time calculating AVEs from media placements. We did media relations to boost awareness and that’s it.
The main reason we keep churning out metrics reports month after month with crazy numbers that have absolutely no value or impact on key business goals, is because our clients ask for it. When are we going to start counseling our clients to revisit how they measure PR and social media efforts and move beyond AVEs? The more we spruce up our metrics reports with the fancy AVE numbers that mean nothing to a brand’s success, the less we are taken seriously by the C-Suite. The Institute of Public Relations presents a good case for why AVEs are misleading and rightly summarizes the conceptual problem of AVEs:
“Calculating AVEs is not a problem in itself—its problems stem from what it is called and how it is used. Calling it an “advertising equivalency” strongly suggests that a news story of a particular size has equal impact to an advertisement of the same size in that publication. At this time, the Commission knows of no factual basis for this assumption. That is, there has been no research to confirm whether this is true.”
So you ask how should I measure media relations activities without AVEs?
The next time you get ready to pitch the New York Times or Mashable, make sure you think beyond the millions of eye balls a.k.a. impressions and ask yourself the following questions:
- How does that help increase traffic to your website or blog?
- How many people expressed an interest in your company after reading that story?
- What was the bottom line impact of that news story on your company’s reputation? Did it generate positive mentions online?
- Did you see an increase in sales following that story?
- Did your existing customers increase their business with you following the positive news coverage?
If you answered “no” to all of the above questions, maybe you should revisit your PR strategy. Media relations is NOT a viable tactic for all brands, rather focus your efforts on CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT. No media coverage is bigger and more valuable than a customer openly stating how happy he/she is after using your product. In my experience, I have seen increase in sales (more so) when PR efforts were more “customer-centric” than “media-centric.”
The #1 complaint against the PR industry is that our efforts don’t amount to bottom line results. Well, if we continue to tread down the dubious path of AVEs, we will only be distancing ourselves from being included at the boardroom level. Start questioning yourself and whomever it is that asks to see AVEs more than executing on campaigns that positively affect business goals.
If you feel strongly against the use of AVEs, express your opinion by leaving a comment here. Who knows, your support might help the PR profession to be taken more seriously than it is now.
Read more on why AVEs are defacing the PR measurement standards:
The Institute for Public Relations : http://www.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2003_AVE1.pdf
Shonali Burke, noted PR industry thought leader and highly regarded for her principles on Metrics & Measurement: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/PR_industry_must_consign_AVE_to_the_graveyard_7825.aspx
Chuck Hemann, VP of Digital Analytics, Edelman: http://chuckhemann.com/aves-are-a-scourge-on-public-relations-can-i
None other than Katie Paine herself on her blog The Measurement Standard: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/themeasurementstandard/aves/
Great post Priya. I agree that PR campaigns are for awareness. Awareness is only the beginning and PR/communication strategist need to have very specific goals and objectives in place other than AVE that align with the overall business strategy.
Thanks Lara! Wish we had more senior communicators like you who don’t believe in AVEs. Please help spread the word.
Fortunately, I haven’t had anyone ask me about AVE. When clients ask me how to best measure their efforts, I offer plenty of ways they can see effects or an integrated communications approach. If we cannot make convincing, pragmatic arguments against AVE to clients, how can we ever become credible professionals PR strategist?
Fortunately, I haven’t had anyone ask me about AVE. When clients ask me how to best measure their efforts, I offer plenty of ways they can see effects of an integrated communications approach. If we cannot make convincing, pragmatic arguments against AVE to clients, how can we ever become credible professionals PR strategist?
RIP AVE’s indeed. However, they will only really be consigned to the grave when the industry produces a credible alternative. AMEC deserves a mention here for the work they are doing in conjunction with the PRSA and CIPR amongst others towards ‘Valid Metrics’, as presented here: http://amecorg.com/2011/10/amec-valid-metrics/
As the editor of a B2B magazine – in a market where PR companies only seem to win clients through espousing AVE – I would love to see the death of this metric.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the pitch: “Hey, you’re spending $10,000 a month on advertising with X. I tell you what! Spent $7,500 with us a month instead and we’ll get you even more coverage with X, and Y, while saving you $30,000 a year in advertising.”
However, the real evil of AVE isn’t that it distorts the true value of editorial. The real evil is two fold.
One, it gives some clients the impression that those PR agencies can magically guarantee them editorial in certain magazines, when they can’t. Which damages the ability of PR companies who aren’t staffed with idiots to win pitches.
And two, it can actually kill the magazines and websites they’re stealing advertising budgets from, leaving them with no way of effecting your AVE.
AVE should go! Having said that, we as PR practitioners should collectively come up with a way to measure or express our work/efforts. Great article.
Yes, we KNOW AVEs are evil, that we should kill them, that they are worthless. The point about AVEs were they were measuring ‘something’. OK the value of the formula and the result could be questioned, but the point is, if you are going to do ANYTHING what is the point in not m,easing it. Yes it is bad, ut if I can show a client that YOY I am showing more growth, or more coverage, or more column inches, then surely that is a good thing. At the end of the day, all big companies want SOME METRIC, so you can prove your worth, that’s how it works. AVEs will continue to be used until somebody can come up with a credible alternative metric
When I strated my PR career in 1998, we started with AVE, it is 2012 and some how, we are still trying to find a standard measurement, given that is a possibility. Today, I am on the corporate side, the management does not believe in AVE, yet they don’t know what best way to measure the PR agency output vis-a-vis the cost of retainer fee that is doled out every month. In India, PR still [mainly] is viewed in ‘how many media clips generated’, quantative. Forget the link to bottom line, the concept of whole some communication and PR being an element of that is missing. Held in isolation and acknowledged only by ‘media coverage’ generated, it is a struggle. Though AVE is not the way forward, none, agency and clients have come out with a better solution yet. It is the sad truth!