Courtesy Josh Jensen, Toronto, Canada (Creative Commons)

It was a gray, windy, stormy day. And that’s just the reaction to Ragan’s PR Daily piece from Jessica Epperly declaring that Advertising Value Equivalents are the cat’s pajamas for PR Measurement.  AVE is the walking dead of PR metrics.

Andrew Bruce Smith (@andismit) commented on the post: “…200 delegates representing 33 countries and five global PR and measurement organizations (AMEC, IPR, PRSA, ICCO, The Global Alliance) voted last summer to declare that Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity. In the UK, the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) has effectively outlawed the use of AVE as a measurement metric. PR Week has also banned the use of AVEs as a success criteria in Awards Entries.”

What th…?

The only explanation is supernatural.  AVEs are the walking dead.  We can’t kill them, ever. Not as long as the Jessica Epperlys of the world continue to say they’re safe and friendly!

The Institute for PR Measurement Commission condemned AVE last fall, AMEC (the professional organization for media evaluation firms) has declared its intent to find a logical replacement, and a recent paper offered Weighted Media Cost as an element worthy of inclusion in measurement programming. Where does this leave us?

I have no stake in this game. My personal belief is that AVEs are bad science, but I’m also sensitive to the need to help clients. AVE is easy for a client to grasp — “if we paid for the space our story ran in, it would have cost us X.”  Katie points out that doctors won’t prescribe a medicine if it’s not right for the patient. AVE isn’t life and death — but what do we do after we’ve explained the drawbacks and negatives and the client still wants it?

I can’t help but put myself in that situation — young company, trying to latch on with a client. Do I tell the client “No. I won’t do AVE” and risk having him/her say, “Well then, I’ll go find someone who will!” ?

#MeasurePR had much more great content than this AVE nonsense, and I really do wish we could collectively move on. I’m done writing about the debate, at least for now.

Looking for a quick way to improve measurement?

Start setting objectives and measuring your attainment of them. Stop worrying about generating lots of eyeballs and do some audience research to reach the right ones. Start looking for correlations between your various communication outputs (and outtakes) and business metrics, such as revenue, cost savings, cost avoidance, time saved, help desk traffic, speed of benefits enrollment, travel system savings, expense systems savings, etc…