AVE’s Are Dead. Or Are They?
October 19, 2009 by Chuck
1Late last week, Katie Paine had a tweet announcing that the Institute for PR’s Measurement Commission voted to reject the concept and practice of AVE’s (advertising value equivalency in case you just woke up in PR/marketing land). Knowing Katie a little bit, I know she was probably thrilled with that development. Katie’s talked a lot on her blog (this most recent gem about her trip to Berlin being the latest) about how ineffective AVE’s are in measuring the impact of your communications program. Thanks to her teachings, I’ve jumped on that bandwagon myself with a post or two. We obviously aren’t the only ones, but I think you get the idea that AVE’s are largely discounted as a measurement technique by the measurement community. No reason to go into why here…
So then why the somewhat negative tone to the title of this post? Well, I guess it’s because I’m not sure that communications pros are going to stop using them as a measurement technique. Why? Because there’s been quite a bit of scholarship to date showing how ineffective they are and pros continue to use them. Because folks like Katie, Sean Williams and others have been arguing for years to use metrics other than AVE’s to measure performance and here we sit. I should note here that this is no indictment on Katie, Sean or the Measurement Commission. They have done more to advance the “practice” of measurement than anybody else in this profession and should be applauded. Heck, standing ovation is more like it.
However, just because the Commission has proclaimed them DOA, doesn’t mean the education stops. We need to keep working to provide the framework by which communications pros can determine, and then ultimately use the metrics that make the most sense for their campaigns.
As much as I’d like to say that AVE’s are dead, I just can’t…at least not yet!
Chuck—Here are four reasons why I don’t like AVE:
1. It assumes value based on cost.
2. It assumes that the receiver interprets your message as equal to advertising.
3. The math is too often fuzzy (published rates rather than negotiated.)
4. Devalues reputation as it privileges revenue.
AVEs are used quite commonly, and many clients demand them. Angie Jeffrey, speaking at the IABC Heritage Region Conference yesterday, has quite credible research that shows that using ad cost as a variable improves correlations—suggesting that paid and unpaid media be considered together when determining impact on business results.
There will be an appropriate metric that considers the role of ad cost (negotiated/actual)—it just won’t be AVE. I mourn AVE not at all, but my view is that we need a better metric to replace it, one that’s simple as AVE for non communicators to understand.
AVEs will continue to be used until that new metric comes about. Stay tuned.