R.I.P. AVE

Public relations firms worldwide have moved away from using advertising value equivalency (AVE) to measure communications effectiveness. Most now employ “value metrics” that focus on specific, measurable objectives.

I have one word for this trend…hallelujah!

PR professionals have used AVE for decades to justify the programs they implement for their organizations and clients. It involves estimating the equivalent advertising cost for an article placement; for example, if Fortune Magazine runs a half-page item on your client, then the value of that placement is the cost of running a half-page ad in the publication. Sometimes, the ad cost would be multiplied, under the assumption that a news story was more credible than an advertisement.

But AVE has several issues that have always made it a suspect measure. It doesn’t take into account whether an article is positive or negative, or how much of the article actually mentions a company. And, no research ever found a multiplier effect.

PR professionals need to employ systematic legitimate measures of effectiveness; for example, whether an audience becomes aware of and understands a message, or whether the message resulted in changing audience attitude or behavior. When they do, they help move public relations from a fuzzy function to a strategic management practice that adds measurable value.