5th September 2014
I’m sure that many of you are Public Relations
students like me and assignments must be piling up in the coming week! Well, if you
are looking through the unit outline of what is expected of a PR Plan, I’m
sure you will see the aspect of measurement and evaluation.
This section in any assignment always brings a
cringe – I’m confident that I’m speaking for everyone that the usual standard
answer for every assignment that addresses this aspect is that ‘we aim to have
high social and traditional media coverage amongst media outlets…’
Theoretically, that sounds like a perfect measurement and evaluation tool for
success of a PR plan – a dream come to realization! But realistically, how do
PR firms measure the success of a PR activity or plan that is being put in
place.
Let me just draw a simple example for you. It
is in our human nature to know what benefits/drawbacks we gain with every
decision made. We can akin the analogy of investing your hard earned money into
a bank for investment purposes – How much interest will this bring me and what
financial benefits will I attain from this investment?
I’m not an accountant or a banker but what I
can share with you is that the analogy above works similarly in a context of a
PR consultancy firm. PR consultancies work on the basis of business development
and maintaining the relationships with clients by offering them the best value
in PR activities. But like all investments, clients wish to know what is their
Return of Investment (ROI) in terms of Public Relations activities engaged.
They wish to know if it was beneficial for their brand, dollar for dollar and
if it helped to elevate their brand identity or reputation within the
marketplace.
My first week at Devahasdin started off with
the Account Manager asking me the simple question of how I would evaluate the
success of a PR campaign. I answered with a simple, ‘I would assume that if the
campaign has a high take up rate, it would be deemed successful.’ The next
question came – ‘But how do you evaluate this in terms of dollars and cents?’
I was stumped. She further probed with the
question of ‘Let’s say if the client invests with a budget of $50,000; how
would you report to them on the benefits of the $50,000 invested?’ I couldn’t
answer.
That’s where she shared the amazing measurement
tool of measuring public relations
effectiveness – the Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) model. To be honest, I have
never heard of this methodology before.
Quoting from my colleagues at Devashasdin,
there is an increasing shift noticed in the marketing world – the effectiveness
of advertising to consumers is dwindling and the rise of public relations is
phenomenal. This can only boil down to the reason that consumers perceive
public relations as more reliable than advertising for the essence of PR is
getting someone to say and endorse your message for you.
Imagine this, if you
place an advertisement in the papers, consumers might think that you are
propagating your product/service but as compared to if your product/service was
reviewed or endorsed by an editor/writer – there is a large element of
credibility there experienced by consumers and it is free!
So how does the AVE work? The AVE works on a
basis that due to the fact that public relations is perceived as more credible
than advertising – it is valued at 5 times (yes, you read it right. FIVE
TIMES), more effective than placing an advertisement.
Armed with this mini tutorial, my first task
was to create an AVE table listing all the different media outlets in Western
Australia and the PR Dollars ($) associated with each article. How I worked
this out was firstly, I had to determine the advertising value of a particular
newspaper – if I were to place an advertisement in the newspaper, how much
would it cost me according to the size and specifications. From there, I had to
work on the PR value that it is 5 x higher due to the fact that it is free and
more credible. Do look at an excerpt of the table that I was tasked to create below for an example;
I must admit. This is something new for me. I
see my colleagues writing their monthly PR highlights for clients where the PR
value is way high and it clearly shows that the investment into Public Relations
activities is way more effective than that of advertising. Advertising has a
diminishing effect on consumers but Public Relations and communications leaves
a lasting effect.
So armed with this newfound knowledge, it has
certainly helped me because we, as aspiring public relations practitioners,
need to communicate to potential clients on the rise and power of public
relations as opposed to advertising. The AVE model is certainly a good way to highlight
this increase and convince clients that they are definitely getting more than
their money’s worth with every dollar invested – meaning that the ROI for a
campaign will be high. Now, isn’t that what all clients wish to achieve?
So I hope that by shedding light on the AVE
model, it has helped you like it has helped me. You can use this in assignments
too! Never blatantly write ‘high media coverage etc.’ anymore! It’s time to
show everyone what the benefits and costs are in dollars and cents!
Nicholas Cross
