Are we still really talking about AVE?

Sometimes the “PR industry” really frustrates me. It annoys me when I see discussion about whether PR should get involved in digital or social media (yes, this still happens) and also about PR’s role in SEO. But, whilst all these might be vaguely tolerable, it’s utterly ridiculous that we are still having discussions about AVE.

Not only is the AVE debate still going on, but it is being debated by some of the biggest names in PR. Recently some of PR’s bigwigs met in Barcelona under the auspices of the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication to agree a set of evaluation and measurement ‘principles’. The so-called Barcelona Principles were agreed as follows:

• Goal setting and measurement are important

• Media measurement requires quantity and quality

• AVEs are not the value of public relations

• Social media can and should be measured

• Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results (outputs)

• Organisational results and outcomes should be measured whenever possible

• Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

I’ve not really got an issue with any of these. However, they are all pretty basic and obvious. Also, ambiguous wording such as “results and outcomes should be measured whenever possible” gives PRs an easy opt-out. The principles don’t add anything to the debate and don’t push the boundaries of what forward thinking PRs and agencies already know.

The mention of AVE embodies this. Don’t get me wrong. I know there are lots of PR agencies out there that are still using AVE (I’m proud to say we are not one of them). And I know there are even more clients out there demanding it.

But AVE is a dinosaur and by still debating it and talking about it, we are merely giving it more awareness. In a digital world, AVE has absolutely no place (I personally doubt it had much place in a non-digital world either, but I wasn’t around then!). The other horrible thing about AVE is that it diminishes the role and power of PR. It reduces the power and raison d’être of PR to a mere ‘cost-effective way to do advertising’. Incredibly, by using AVE, all PRs are archiving is ‘doing-down’ their role in the marketing mix.

So whilst I can’t argue against the principle which declares that AVEs are not the value of public relations, it’s just sad that the conversation hasn’t moved on from this point yet, at least at an ‘industry body’ level.

picture credit

Danny Whatmough