Comments on: Stop pretending PR is worth the same as advertising space

By: Al

Al — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:46:41 +0000

I say pity the poor marketing people who have to fill in their spreadsheets to hand to their bosses. Sure, you can ‘Add Comment’ to a value cell saying “it was really positive” or what have you, but they have to decide where to spend the money next year.
If other marketing channels like media, DM etc are being measured in a Cost vs Value scenario, i.e. only in dollar signs, then it’s only fair they should seek to measure PR the same way.
I’m not a PR person and I can tell the formula is flawed, but there HAS to be a formula that spits out a $ value at the end. After all $s are what they are spending, not fluffly platitudes.

By: Lisa Moulton

Lisa Moulton — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:32:35 +0000

It’s certainly not just PRs who often ineffectively evaluate results the advertising industry is renowned for it. Look at the Australian Tourism and Carlton Draught’s Big Ad commercials. These were lauded as great successes due to the number of people viewing them. What a crock! THe ATC ad did not result in an increase in international visitors and the Carlton ad did not result in any real increase in sales. Advertising is notorious for not caring about the clients objectives, usually sales, but instead producing a creative piece that will get them, the agency, recognition. Yet it’s the ad industry who has criticised PR for not being able to evaluate results.

By: Karalee_

Karalee_ — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:46:12 +0000

I must say, I’m a little surprised coming back to this thread, and reading the comments which range from complete support of banishing AVE measurement, acknowledgement that it is not the best form but still if the client wants it, through to support for AVE.

As Fleur says quite eloquently, public relations (or in this post, media relations) should be measured by objectives, not column inches.

There are recognised methodologies in measuring and evaluating media coverage which practitioners can easily translate to a client environment, including http://www.pria.com.au/resourc.....evating-pr and http://www.pria.com.au/resourc.....s/l/layout

What I haven’t seen (?) is a recognition that we can be more strategic with our measurement, including proving ROI and an impact on sales and the bottom line. Surely, in terms of convincing a client that the ‘job is done, and done well’ it starts at the beginning – identify your objectives and a strategy to achieve them. Do you want to achieve a change in sentiment? Perhaps profile a service/product/CEO? Well, proving success of these is not through column inches! It’s qualitative and quantitative.. did people actually read it or are you assuming circulation rates are accurate/adequate?

A good place to read more is over at the PRIA website: http://www.pria.com.au/resourc.....ving-value

By: Robert Masters,FPRIA

Robert Masters,FPRIA — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:12:40 +0000

The simple fact is the AVEs are not recognised as a legitimate measurement of the work of public relations practitioners in Australia by the national institute, nor by any other national professional institute around the world, let alone the Global Alliance of all the institutions. Any work that is put forward for an industry award using AVE will be rejected out of hand. Practitioners using it do themselves a disservice. There are plenty of other methodologies available to reflect the quality of work to clients.

By: Jen Bishop

Jen Bishop — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:16:49 +0000

I agree with Fleur. If you use AVE you assume that churning out press releases and getting coverage in publications is the only important thing PRs do. In my opinion it is about so much more than that. Having said that, I can see why it is an easy way of ‘proving’ value to a client and that a lot of clients would struggle to accept a different way. Let’s face it, most of THEM think the most important thing is column inches, totally missing all the other stuff that goes with it.

By: Trevor Young PR Warrior

Trevor Young PR Warrior — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:22:48 +0000

Good piece Sarah – I think the bigger picture is less about AVEs per se and more to do with the fact the business world is spilling in to two different camps when it comes to PR. Dovetailing from your post above, I’ve blogged about it here: ‘Column Inches’ Argument Gives Weight to Another Dilemma: the True Role of PR http://tinyurl.com/ykh3swv

By: mumbrella

mumbrella — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:40:12 +0000

Hi Creative Territory,

I suspect one reason there’s a fair bit of consensus is that those who use the methodology with clients know that it’s a steaming crock, but they’re keeping their heads down.

I know of large Australian agencies who do use it.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

By: Creative Territory

Creative Territory — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:13:43 +0000

The great thing about this debate is that virtually everyone agrees that AEVs should be killed off. We simply refuse to report on them to clients and have developed a simple tool that they can use themselves using their own media clippings. You can view it at http://www.creativeterritory.com/itrack

By: aplet

aplet — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:53:24 +0000

Nice peice, and well written… certainly evocative!

The reality is – the client wants an ROI so he/she can evaluate success/failure. AVE does it in the same language as the PR’s above the line cousins. Like it or not, most senior marketers need a base metric for comparison and AVE is it… I personally think it undercalls the true value of 3rd party endorsement. We’re all guilty of spending (other peoples money) way too much on traditional ads – we’ve built an industry out of it!

Its similar to the financial markets – risk vs return. Above the line has low risk, owing to complete control of the message. PR has high risk owing to a lack of control of the final message. It stands to reason therefore that PR coverage has a higher return (or loss if negative)…

By: Geoffrey Emerson

Geoffrey Emerson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:43:34 +0000

@Richelle – Thanks for responding to my post, I really like the idea of a set of pre-defined criteria that both you and the client agree on.

I think I am going to incorporate that, online metrics such as page views, and some sort of qualitative review of comments and brand messaging.

Interesting debate, I think it might be time for a industry body like the PRIA to adopt a framework similar to MRP and get some real consensus across the industry what really works.

By: Richelle

Richelle — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:53:11 +0000

re: “This is a Canadian online PR measurement tool” — by that I meant the tool is accessed online, not that it measures online PR campaigns.

By: Martin W

Martin W — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:49:14 +0000

A couple of comments:

If all your clients want is a dollar value because that is all they understand then there are much more senisitive ways of of creatingone than a multiplier effect. Base it on audience reached, cost per thousand that is relevant to your sector and audience rather than on flat rate dollar fees than publications charge, but may be totally unsuited to your campaigns. MB Precis can provide this, but it is just a much more robust data source and then becomes a strategic tool. It would still have an underlying basis in what you need to know not some farcical number.

As for the ‘online is the only thing that matters’ people. We all appreciate that this a growing area and could be hugely important for PR, but until it becomes more measurable from a PR perspective then its true value can’t be accurately assessed. However, just posting an article about a product or topic online doesn’t cut it. Agencies are giving the value of tiny blogs on sites such as Yahoo! as the value of the whole site, or the whole section. Both of these numbers can and almost always do hugely overvalue the prominence. They are interesting relative scores to other sites, but until websites/blogs/etc become more accountable and transparent about their traffic and help PR practitioners understand how effective their sites are for transimitting this type of info, there will be a lot of guesswork and assumption.

By: Sarah Emerson

Sarah Emerson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:39:45 +0000

Thanks for all your comments. Isn’t it crazy that this topic is still giving us such a headache? I think most PR professionals recognise an AVE does not represent the achievements of media relations work. Send this thread onto your clients or bosses and show them how united we are in our opinions on AVEs (I’m sure Tim would love the extra views)! We live in an age of accountability and shouldn’t be afraid to evaluate our work – so long as the methodology is appropriate and the objectives realistic. Like Kate said, many clients do understand there are better ways to evaluate media outcomes and [gratuitous plug] Millward Brown Precis works with a number of global and local organisations who get this.

And just to clarify Kate’s other point, I meant this particular discussion is focused on quantitative measurement as this is where the heinous crime of using AVEs is seen!

By: dave

dave — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:35:10 +0000

@ John Grono, well said. I’m getting a bit sick of people bashing other media because they a) don’t work in that area, b) don’t understand but most likely both. In closing, I would just like to say that all media should be spent purely on digital. Thank you.

By: Allison

Allison — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:23:32 +0000

As a PR professional, I understand that companies want to quantify the value of PR. However I believe that applying a multiplier to the PR coverage is unethical. In my 20 years of working in PR I have never seen any study that can prove PR is more credible than advertising. Raw AVEs I understand, but multipliers are dodgy.
I believe that multipliers are devised by agencies who simply want to make themselves look better.

Worse, using this as a benchmark doesn’t address any of the central tennants of PR – did it reach the target audience; were the key messages carry.

We all know that PR and advertising achieve different outcomes for clients. PR needs to be brave enough to drop the ‘multipliers’.