Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) is still an often-used and important metric in the PR world. It has its place, especially for PR agencies looking to quantify the value of media coverage for stakeholders who aren’t PR or Communications professionals. But, to be honest, while AVE can be handy, it’s not the whole picture. There are other, more advanced ways to really show off PR value.
What is AVE?
Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) is a metric used to measure the value of media coverage by comparing it to the cost of purchasing the same amount of space or time in advertising. AVE is calculated based on rate cards, which list the cost of advertising space or time, and the size (in cm²) of print articles or the duration of broadcast segments. The idea is to assign a monetary value to PR coverage as if it were paid advertising.
AVE isn't as robust as one might think. It lacks a strict methodology, and its calculation can often be opaque. Because it is calculated from rate cards that differ internationally and from publisher to publisher, month-to-month differences can be tricky to determine, and the numbers might not accurately reflect the true impact of your PR efforts. Our media analysis team prefers manual, bespoke analysis, which is more accurate and tailored to the specific needs of our clients with a robust methodology
One of the main criticisms of AVE is that it doesn't differentiate between positive, neutral, or negative coverage. A glowing article and a scathing review could both be assigned the same AVE, despite their vastly different impacts on a brand's reputation. AVE also ignores the influence of digital media, where the reach and engagement of online content can be far more significant than traditional print or broadcast media.
It’s also important to recognise that advertising and PR are different disciplines. Advertising disrupts the audience's experience to capture their attention, whereas PR draws people in by providing content they actively seek out and engage with. Both are crucial, but they serve different strategic purposes and have different objectives. AVE essentially assigns a monetary value to PR coverage as if it were paid advertising. This aligns marketing metrics with PR metrics, potentially resulting in misleading conclusions about the effectiveness of PR campaigns.
In 2017, the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) launched a major educational initiative with the aim of eliminating the demand and use of the AVE metric in the Comms and PR industry globally. AMEC’s ‘Say No to AVES’ campaign published a comprehensive list of 22 reasons not to use AVE as a metric. According to the AMEC, "AVEs have long been the subject of intense criticism but because they claim to put a financial value equivalency on PR and Comms work, and are easy to produce, there is still a lingering demand from some quarters of the communications profession."
To better demonstrate PR value, it's essential to move beyond AVE and incorporate more sophisticated metrics. Here are some effective ways to measure PR performance:
Comparing your media coverage to that of your competitors gives insight into your brand's visibility and prominence in the market. Break this down by media types, and leading publications/outlets for each benchmarked entity and you’ve got a roadmap for where you could focus outreach for greater media presence.
This metric is constantly audited and is more accurate as a result. It gives an estimate of the total number of people who might have seen your media coverage.
Within our Instant Insights dashboard, one of our charts can track specific phrases or keywords within a given pool of coverage. For example, within coverage of your brand mentions you could track the mentions of a specific product or campaign launch, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the PR campaign or strategy and quantify PR success.
Combining media coverage with third-party metrics such as web referral traffic, stock value, or Net Promoter Score (NPS) can provide a more holistic view of a campaign’s impact.
Tracking sentiment over time allows you to gauge public perception and the emotional response to your brand. This can be invaluable in understanding how your PR efforts resonate with your audience.
Combining metrics such as sentiment, share of voice, and audience reach across different publications provides a more comprehensive understanding of PR performance.
The main goal of AVE is understanding a campaign or release's impact on the media, yet there are functions to be able to analyse this at a volume, reach and sentiment basis. Streem’s Outreach tool is able to combine your media release data with coverage data to visualise the relationship between the two. Conversely, our Media Analysis team can analyse this for you as part of the human-rated nature of these reports. Understanding the impact on sentiment that proactive or reactive campaigns can have, and seeing the shift in the dial on paper, can illustrate to stakeholders the impact PR has on overall brand reputation and subsequently, PR success.
We’re not saying AVE should be scrapped as a metric altogether, a PR agency, a bank, a retail consumer brand, and a government department will all have different needs and objectives. Assigning a dollar value can be useful in explaining PR value to commercially minded leadership who haven’t engaged with PR before, but using AVE alone means you risk missing out on valuable information that can drive more effective and targeted PR strategies.
By embracing a more comprehensive approach to measuring PR value, you can demonstrate the true impact of your efforts and make informed decisions to enhance your campaigns. Setting specific goals for your brand, as well as qualitative analysis, will always be the most accurate way to measure PR performance. Remember, the key is to tailor your approach to the unique needs of your brand. Streem’s team are here to support you with advice on best practice and comprehension of metrics, to be able to better present your media coverage and demonstrate your value.