To AVE or not to AVE?

While working at PPR, one of my main tasks is to do AVE’s, also known as Advertising Value Equivalents. In case anyone doesn’t know what AVE's are, it is a method of measuring the value of PR work done by a consultancy or consultants and how much editorial publicity gained is worth. The main clients I’ve been doing this task for are Perth Fashion Festival (PPF) and the Art Gallery of WA’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and while this is seen as an important task to do for the clients at PPR, there has also been discussion has to how effective it as a PR measuring tool.  Here I’ve listed the pros and cons I believe AVE‘s bring to PR.

PROS:

·         It’s a good way to measure how much publicity is being gained

·         It’s an effective evaluation tool, especially for strategies

·         It can help to increase profitability

·         A dollar value can be put on media coverage

·         AVE’s can measure PR output

CONS:

·         AVE’s imply that PR and advertising (or editorials and advertising) are the same thing

·         Publicity can be good, bad or neutral – these can’t be measured in the same way

·         AVE’s don’t take into account editorial positioning or demographics of the publication

·         AVE’s don’t measure the impact or effect of the content

·         AVE’s don’t acknowledge coverage of competitors

In all, I think if AVE’s were to be used effectively, they should only be used to measure PR output. But looking at this aspect, it’s very limited and possibly more time-consuming. If AVE's are used to measure PR in any other form, information wouldn’t be reliable or accurate. Many clients expect AVE’s to be done so they can easily see if the money they have spent on PR is worth it or not, but maybe clients should start looking beyond AVE’s and look at measuring PR in quantitative ways rather than qualitative ways.