The idea of Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) has been around
for many years and generated much debate in the PR community. Many
practitioners are attracted to AVE because it puts a dollar value
on media coverage and, by extension, allows PR to "compare" results
with advertising. Yet the measure has a number of problems, and it
is important to anyone considering its use to consider both its
strengths and its weaknesses. The IPR Commission does not endorse
AVE as a measurement tool, but we hear all the time from people who
have bosses or clients who demand it.
Definitions
AVEs are calculated by measuring the column inches (in the case
of print), or seconds (in the case of broadcast) and multiplying
these figures by the respective medium's advertising rates (per
inch or per second). The resulting number is what it would have
cost to place an advertisement of that size in that media
outlet.
Some people have gone beyond these calculations and applied
another multiplier to allegedly take into account the "PR factor."
This refers to the idea that news messages are presumably more
credible than advertising messages and are therefore more
persuasive. To take this into account, multipliers ranging from 1.5
to 6 have been used throughout the industry. The resulting numbers
are often referred to not as AVEs, but as "PR values."
Conceptual & Logistical Problems
But the term "advertising equivalency" strongly suggests that a
news story of a particular size has equal impact to an
advertisement of the same size. At this time, the Commission knows
of no factual basis for this assumption.
Another conceptual limitation of AVEs is that they only value
what actually appears in the media. Yet it is often the case that
PR pros counsel clients to behave in a way that purposefully
results in an absence of publicity.
The final major conceptual problem with AVEs concerns the
fundamentally different nature of news and advertising. An
advertisement is usually repeatedly placed in media. Studies have
shown that it generally requires repeated exposure to have an
impact on consumers' awareness, perceptions, attitudes and
behaviors.
News stories don't work this way. While a given person may be
exposed to a number of stories all about the same topic or event,
it is most likely that each of these stories will be different. We
know that exposure to news coverage has an impact on consumers'
awareness, perceptions, attitudes and behavior, but we don't know
how to compare the relatively diverse set of messages delivered by
news coverage to relatively homogeneous ad messages.
The calculation of AVE also has some very practical problems.
For example, in many cases no advertising rates exist. Many print
publications do not accept advertisements on their front pages or
at the front of major sections. These locations are the most
coveted as they are the most prominent and influential. While it is
true that purveyors of AVE number have developed "back-up"
procedures when ad rates are not available, these procedures
undermine the basic concept.
Another very practical problem with AVE calculations is that
there is no advertising equivalent to a "bad" or "unfavorable"
story.
News stories often talk about a number of topics and often they
include a number of companies. How, then, do we calculate AVE?
Solutions
When a client or supervisor asks for AVE, I hope your first
response will be to try to engage them in a discussion of the
surrounding issues and as rapidly as possible change the discussion
to focus on objectives and alternative methods of evaluating media
relations' contribution to these objectives.
But what if the client or boss continues to require AVEs? Since
AVEs are based on both circulation and media credibility, they are
a reasonably good measure for the "prominence" of your news
coverage. When you calculate AVEs for your entire media coverage
for a given time period and then compare it to another time period,
you can legitimately say whether your coverage's prominence is
increasing or decreasing. You could also compare your prominence to
that of your competitors.
Move away from statements like, "Our news coverage this quarter
was worth $X million in advertising." Instead, talk about how you
achieved your prominence goal, how your coverage gained in
prominence over the year, or how you beat out your competitors in
terms of prominence.
AVE Alternatives
There are a number of other metrics outside of Ad Equivalency
Values that can help you reflect the effectiveness and efficiency
of your media relations efforts. Many of these are covered in other
Commission papers. Review these and consider adopting one or more
of them as they can provide a meaningful and useful approach to
evaluation. They can help guide your efforts and also help you
address the accountability challenge.
See the IPR's Web site for more information on these important
tools for measuring without resorting to AVEs. Go to http://www.instituteforPR.com.
Bruce Jeffries-Fox is president of Jeffries-Fox Associates and a
member of the Institute for Public Relations' Commission on
Measurement. Contact him at 609/884-8740 or [email protected].