May
7
Written by:
Spinner
Thu, 07 May 2009 10:50:03 GMT
Today’s PR Week revisits the age-old debate about Advertising Value Equivalent or AVE. For the uninitiated it’s a system whereby you calculate the advertising cost of the space your story has taken.
It’s a system that’s always made PR people look and feel good because the AVE is always going to outstrip the PR budget by a mile. But it’s flaws are obvious. PRs aims are different to advertising and the means of calculating of AVE has always been a bit hit and miss.
An even bigger problem in the recession – and one rightly pointed out in the PR Week piece is that advertising rates are falling, so AVE must be falling too. So is Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’ PR triumph worth less this year than it would have done a year ago?
We’ve been going round the houses for years on this issue and no one has been able to find a solution to the question of measuring results that the whole industry is happy to adopt.
There is definitely a desire to get there, and an understanding that better measurability will help PR to further strengthen its role in the marketing mix. The problem is that publishers and broadcasters don’t want to help the industry develop audience reaction metrics because they get no revenue from PR.
Also, the fact that PR budgets are relatively low, means that resources to develop really sound metrics are scarce. If a client is spending £20 million on an ad campaign the imperative for measurability is clear. But great PR comes at a much lower cost (just ask the Queensland tourism board) so it’s unlikely that CMOs face as much pressure from CFOs to be as accountable for their PR spend.
No doubt the debate will continue to rumble on.
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