You AVE’n a laff?
The findings of a nationwide survey into how PR-generated media coverage is measured and whether Advertising Equivalent Values (AVE) was an appropriate method to do so contain no real surprises but the industry-wide debate generated has been invaluable, say the CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group.
The CAANZ Marcomms Group, working with the New Zealand Marketing Association, surveyed agencies and clients about their use of AVE* and other PR measures. Interestingly, the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) was not involved in the survey because of its less than favourable attitude to AVE as a measurement tool and is currently conducting its own survey.
Group chair Claudia Macdonald of Mango Communications says the survey showed real consistency in people’s use and views on AVE, which has been heavily criticised as a measurement tool in many overseas markets, and PR measurement overall (watch a few VIPRs discuss some of these thorny issues, as well as our Dear Leader Vincent Heeringa laying into poor PR in a room filled with PRs on the Ad Show. Apparently, he was scratched and clawed to within an inch of his life following the show).
“More than 60 percent of those measuring PR value used AVE and 68 percent said that it should not be the sole method of measurement. The multipliers used varied widely, from one to six, with the majority using three times advertising rate card value,” Ms Macdonald says.
Comments posted via the survey indicate that while many organisations do not necessarily agree that AVE is an ideal measure, they believe it provides a language that people outside of the communications industry readily understand. One respondent commented: “It puts it into a context our (business) colleagues and management can understand, as all other business activity is presented in a financial format”. And another said: “my clients will only agree to use it for traditional media”, mentioning that it didn’t work for social media or online.
Research into the effectiveness of public relations activity was most often cited as an ideal way to measure it while the need for clients and agencies to set expectations up front was crucial. However, many believed that with the increase in online, social media, experiential and events as part of PR, a single measurement solution was not possible. As one respondent commented: “Sales is the best measure of outcomes but that’s hardly realistic with marcomms as there are so many variables. Even advertising Tarps (target audience rating points), while living under a cloak of scientific respectability, hardly measure the effect of ads on people”.
Macdonald says that while the results are perhaps unsurprising, the debate stirred by the survey has been worthwhile.
“While we acknowledge that AVE is not the be all and end all of PR measurement, it is still the most commonly used tool. Until we have agreed alternative measures in place, CAANZ believes it is important to have a common standard. We welcome the wider industry’s initiatives to develop some guidelines as we have been talking long enough.”
The CAANZ Marcomms Group will be reviewing the results this month with the aim of setting a standard that will be adopted by all CAANZ agency members for client work and in Axis and EFFIE award entries.
*AVE is calculated by multiplying the advertising rate card value of the media coverage achieved by a number (usually between three and seven), chosen to reflect the view that editorial coverage has more resonance with consumers than paid for advertising space. It has been used globally for more than 40 years.
Tim Marshall
April 16, 2010
The pressure group Avaaz (avaaz.org) today announced some results of their PR activities. They inlcude the UK announcing a plan to double the total global area of protected ocean with a new conservation zone bigger than Germany and Italy combined. In the public comment period before the decision, Avaaz members contributed more than 85% of the responses. An Avaaz petition also helped win protection for elephants at a UN Endangered Species session. These are examples of the next stage of PR measurement – not just measuring the messages we transmit but the action that results. If you are interested in PR measurement, PRINZ is hosting an event on Tuesday evening 20 April. For details go to http://www.prinz.org.nz/tools/events/details.aspx?SECT=Events&ID=6064.
Katie Delahaye Paine
April 20, 2010
Way to go New Zealand! Now that the Institute for Public Relations, the Canadian Public Relations Society and god knows how many other organizations have officially rejected AVEs, because there is no statistical validity to them or the muliplier you endorse — NOW you decide to come out in favor of them? Even better, just as 46% percent of CMOs say they moving money OUT of Advertising, when Ad budgets are dropping by 20% each year, and more an more Ad revenue is moving to PR — you decide that the most appropriate measure of PR is to compare it to a discipline in decline. Sounds like a really smart move.
Duncan Stuart
April 20, 2010
Really it should be simple. Presumably a client is hiring PR specialists to help effect some kind of result – whether it sales, enquiries or simply a positive shift in public opinion toward issue X. All these things are measurable, and reliably, by using good market research to guage these shifts. What's so hard about that? Why are people wringing their hands over AVEs? They're not necessarily relevant, and certainly not reliable.
Doing AVEs would be like measuring your ad agency's effectiveness by doing a word count in their press ads or TVCs. Nonsensical.
Spencer
April 20, 2010
Duncan stop being so old school man….measuring a campaign by its objectives, tch how dare you. Its all about size and noise.
Sylvie
April 20, 2010
Measuring PR has always been a tricky business – not least because it’s expensive to measure changed perceptions or behaviour. While large accounts can set aside generous budgets to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns, the same doesn’t apply when you’re working in the SME arena. AVE may be a woefully inadequate measuring stick, but I think in some parts of the economic landscape we’re pretty much stuck with it.
Katie Delahaye Paine
April 20, 2010
Sylvie, what are you basing your assumptions on? PR measurement is neither tricky nor unaffordable. I've been doing it for 25 years and have never found it interesting and occasionally time consuming, but never "tricky". Truth is that PR measurement programs start at $3600 a year, and surveys can be done for under $10,000. Most times I advise my clients that the data already exists, you just need to track it systematically — and all that takes is Excel.
Vincent Heeringa
April 20, 2010
The assumption behind your 'work', Katie, is that PR is actually of any value at all. You remind me of an alchemist trying to count the lead that you insert into the gold – as gold. The more the PR industry pushes the lead the less valuable the magic becomes.
Rather than try to value your bogus practices, the real effort should go into asking this question: how can I add value to the reader/viewer and the channel that I'm exploiting for my client.
If you can help publishers and media owners expand and deepen their channels, then you'll have a proposition worth valuing.
Until then, the media will regard you suspiciously as the hack who simply syphons money from previously paying advertisers to then freeload off the poor mugs who pay for the journos, designers, pirnters, distributors, defamation lawyers and tax man.
I spoke about such things in similarly floral prose on Media 7, (see the link in the story above) and while Claudia and Tim would no doubt like to stick pins in my neck, I suspect they grudgingly agree: PR is only of value when actually adds value.
Try measuring that.
Gerry Kookmeyer
April 20, 2010
V: excellent post. Do you have the show on disc? I don't want to waste my remaining bandwidth for the month.
Vincent Heeringa
April 20, 2010
Sadly no I don't. But I have memorised every line which I could recite to you over a beer.
Aren't these data caps a pain in the proverbial.
Katie Delahaye Paine
April 21, 2010
Vincent, I've spent the past 23 years tying PR efforts to business results. While not all PR programs can measure tangible business impact, most of the ones that I've worked on do. You might want to read this paper on the topis http://www.instituteforpr.org/research_single/using_public_relations_research_to_drive_business_results/
Gerry Kookmeyer
April 21, 2010
I watched a bit of the show – a whole 76MB of it. While amusing I had kind of hoped for an on-camera stoush V v C.
Duncan Stuart
April 21, 2010
Sylvie – your comment about measurement of results being "expensive" is telling. (It is also untrue – and sounds as if you might have some long held perceptions about Market Research that need challenging.) The idea of accepting AVE because it is affordable just isn't a good argument. Cheapness is not really tanatamount to best practice and AVE is simply inadequate – and measures the wrong thing in any case.
There's a point where a PR professional has to draw a line in the sand and tell their client to do the right thing, not simply the cheap thing.
Failure to do that has the simple effect of compromising your professionalism.
AVE, I feel, is a rocky road to nowhere. The fact that some clients think it is a good thing shows, sadly, that not all clients are necessarily smart.
How can measure be conducted at a reasonable price? Well, if your SME is conducting a small, targeted PR campaign – then tailor the listening exercise to the small target. Reach them online. Ask them to tell their stories. Do this before and after the PR exercise. It isn't hard.
Sylvie
April 21, 2010
Katie, in my experience PR measurement is tricky because meaningful research is unaffordable for smaller clients as I pointed out. While you suggest that surveys can be done for under $10,000, the truth of the matter is that the client pool of some practitioners (myself included) includes a host of smaller clients who can often barely afford a $10K PR programme, let alone spend the same amount again on measuring it. In reality, some of these clients are often effectively served with the odd press release. And in such instances a ‘quick and dirty’ approach like AVE is a perfectly acceptable measure in my opinion (along the 80/20 principle).
Unfortunately the PR industry on the whole seems predominantly concerned with the problem space around large accounts, and that invariably excludes providers who service the smaller type of companies that are so prevalent across NZ.
Sylvie
April 21, 2010
Duncan, I hear ya …
And you’re right, most clients aren’t necessarily sophisticated in this regard. In fact, the opposite is often nearer the truth. But let’s face it, there’s only so much effort one can put into educating them before the exercise becomes commercially unfeasible.
I’m not saying that AVE is ideal, but for ad hoc/low cost initiatives it serves a purpose, however inadequate it is.
Duncan Stuart
April 21, 2010
To be honest, if I had a 10k budget for PR, and wasn't willing to properly measure the outcomes (hey a gut feel may be all that's necessary) then I'd rather do NO research than do AVE. The sheer tonnage of hits, visits or whatever you choose to measure is irrelevant. I could score a zillion AVE points easily (Vodafone tried it a few year back – pay some sports fan to streak across the pitch wearing your logo) but is that really a good thing? AVE points give no sense of effectiveness, quality, or anything else. A dumb measure may be cheap – but it is still stupid.
Katie Delahaye Paine
April 21, 2010
As long as y'all tie your results to meaningless, irrelevant and inaccurate measure of results. you don't deserve budgets in excess of $100, never mind $10,000. In my experience, clients that demonstrate true business value (not AVE) consistently grow their budgets year on year and don't have to worry about getting the money they need to do things correctly.
Duncan Stuart
April 22, 2010
Katie – Go tigerr! This raises a question we see in other areas of research: KPIs and measures on issues such as customer service, staff satisfaction, which are ill-formed, often meaningless numbers. Managers may "feel" in control with these bogus numbers but in many cases they're simply distracted from the real issues. They're watching the oil light and don't notice that the fuel gauge is reading empty.
Mary McNamara
April 22, 2010
Katie as you know I have been doing media analysis in New Zealand for 15 years. It has been my experience that robust research showing good PR at work prompts managers to allocate more for budgets and gives authority to the communicators in organisations. I have a client in every major sector and a number of government organisations, plus some small organisations and I have never been required to do ad equivalents. My clients want to inform their work and plan for the future. I was suprised to see PRINZ debating such an outmoded method to a meeting of over 250 paying mosting students – they deserve something better PRINZ.