Discussion on Advertising Value Equivalents: In PR Practice Still in Great Demand
[Translate to Englisch:] S. Geissler / pixelio.de
For the majority of British organizations, the measurement of communication activities is on the agenda now. But almost half of the organizations that undertake evaluation still draw on Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE). This is the result of a recent small-scale survey into current PR measurement and evaluation practices, conducted by the University of Bournemouth in the United Kingdom.
Evaluation of PR activities: Self-certification is in common
According to the survey, 80 percent of organizations undertake formal or informal evaluation of PR activity. The main measurement was media coverage, followed by measurement of organization-specific KPIs (key performance indicators) and social media figures.The survey also shows that almost half of all communications departments, namely 46 percent, do evaluate of PR activities on their own. About one-quarter of PR staff use services of measurement service providers.
Despite the Barcelona Principles – AVE continues to be widely used
Although the evaluation and measurement of communications plays a central role in the practice of organizations now and the outcomes are more and more connected to organizational goals, many practitioners stick to the concept of AVE. According to the survey, 44 percent of the organizations say that they calculate AVEs to determine the performance of PR activities. Furthermore, the survey results show that even members of the AMEC, the initiator of the Barcelona Principles which barred use of AVE, offer appropriate tools and services to calculate the metric.
Four years after the Barcelona Principles: „Don`t expect too much.“
Although the survey results cannot claim to be representative, they indicate the current status quo of the Barcelona Principles in practice: Four years after the establishment of the first internationally standardized principles for PR evaluation, the principles are only known in about half of the organizations. In addition, evaluation providers still serve demands for the metric. Despite of the best efforts of academia and industry associations to replace the value by more appropriate metrics: AVE still seems to be a major player in the PR evaluation.
About the survey
The survey was conducted by the University of Bournemouth in the United Kingdom. PR students were surveyed about their experience of evaluation practices during their sandwich year placement. All but one respondent had been on placement for nine months or more in a single organisation.
Full results are available here and here.
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