Here we go again. The old hoary topic of AVE’s (advertising value equivalents) as a way of measuring the value of editorial media coverage seems to be getting another airing within the Australian PR industry. Surely there are not many PR Manager’s around who subscribe to this approach!
To be fair it’s not a debate that has been started by PR professionals. In fact it has been sparked by a new service launched by Media Monitors, which in its announcement claims the tool will “provide the region’s most comprehensive quantitative analysis tool for editorial content across all media types”.
It calls it “a measurement methodology that incorporates data on page impressions, unique visitors, content style, advertising rates, size, language scaling and placement to provide instantly comparable advertising space rates (ASR) across internet monitoring content.”
The announcement has led to an encouraging debate on Mumbrella, the media and marketing portal. Encouraging in that the majority view seems to be strongly against the whole initiative!
On Mumbrella Brendan Swale, Product Director at Media Monitors, rushes out in defence to say “that’s not what we really mean”. As he appears to backtrack at great speed he even goes so far as to say “Media Monitors does not believe that ASRs or AVEs are in any way a measurement of the value of public relations or communications, nor do they inform future strategy, which is what good outcome based measurement provides (which Media Monitors also provides)”.
It must be the time of the year for the reincarnation of discredited concepts. I was in New Zealand recently and I was told that the PR subsidiary of an ad agency had made a presentation arguing for the use of AVE’s. I’m told they were pretty much howled down by the PR pros in the room. Good on them.
This is a topic I’ve written on for a long time. I see that in PR Influences I wrote as long ago as 2001 about how the PRIA had joined other PR organisations around the world in rejecting AVE’s as a legitimate form of measuring the value of editorial coverage in media.
Back in March when I blogged on a US PR measurement survey I used the opportunity to canvass the whole topic again so I won’t go over it again.
If you are interested in the topic of PR and editorial measurement I’ve written more than a dozen articles previous articles on, and around, this topic.
The PRIA has even produced a White Paper – Advertising Values to Measure PR – Why They Are Invalid.
I am sure that the debate on Mumbrella is just warming up. Certainly it’s worth taking a look at what’s being said, and especially the comments of Brendan Swale from Media Monitors.
As is the norm these days Media Monitors says that it welcomes the open debate on the topic. So much so that they’ve decided to invite anyone interested to join them for free drinks on July 22. Details are yet to be advised – which makes it sound a tad like a bit of a last minute crisis control exercise!
Interestingly Media Monitors has new owners – one of those private equity investors. One wonders what they think (or understand) about these issues.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll repeat what I said over on Mumbrella. I’m so disappointed in this I could cry. We worked so hard to get consensus around the Barcelona Principles and less than a month later we’re STILL wasting time effort and energy on this nonsense. I think Media MOnitora is putting lipstick on a pig. This is nothing but AVE’s renamed. It’s no different than VMS’s Weighted Media Cost. They are still equating PR to Advertising in total violations of the Barcelona Priniciples. What’s the point of getting a majority of people in the industry to agree to a standard and then the next month going out and announcing something that is in total contradition to those principles? I’m disgusted.
We face the same problem in our market down here in New Zealand. I dont think the model of a monitoring agency also doing robust and informed analysis can ever work. Monitoring agencies are volume driven. They make milk. Analysts need the good piece that matters. We make cream. In New Zealand I have a client in every major sector and several in government. They will embrace the Barcelona Principles. Bring them on.