The Barcelona Principles were introduced to the public relations measurement industry at the AMEC Measurement Summit in Barcelona five years ago. As a way to measure our industry’s progress on compliance with these Principles, we thought it would be interesting to see how many of this year’s speakers and sponsors are still offering AVEs. Turns out that:
- 4 out of 15 sponsors still offer AVEs.
- At least 6 of the speakers are from companies that still offer AVEs.
- Even more disappointing is that 32 of the 37 speakers (86 percent) have not pledged to support the Principles and the measurement standards that resulted from them.
The Measurement Mavens: Those who have pledged.
Congratulations and thank you to the four AMEC Measurement Summit speakers who have pledged to support measurement standards:
The Measurement Menaces: Those who have NOT pledged.
The AMEC Measurement Summit speakers that have not pledged to support the standards are listed below. We award them the Scarlet H for Hypocrisy. Particularly of interest are those agencies that have played such a large role in getting publicity for Measurement Week/Month.
- L’Argus de la Presse
- Bright House Networks
- National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
- Cision * also offers AVE
- Cleveland Clinic
- EBA
- Gorkana * also offers AVE
- HM Government UK
- Impact * also offers AVE
- Infometric
- Isentia * also offers AVE
- Kantar Media News Intelligence * also offers AVE
- Ketchum
- KPMG
- Lewis PR
- Moreover Technologies * also offers AVE
- Newton Media
- Nissan
- NLA
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Ogilvy PR * also offers AVE of social media
- PR News Russia
- PRCA
- Retriever
- Skanska AB
- Social Eyez
- The Swedish Institute
- UNICEF
- Unilever
- United Minds
- UT Sydney
- Weber Shandwick
We’ll be measuring the impact of of this article by keeping track of the number of Menaces who either pledge or no longer offer AVEs. Stay tuned for updates. ∞
If you use Google translate you will be able to see another horrid example of AVEs being used in Spain. The mortal remains of Cervantes (author of Don Quixote) were recently uncovered and the city of Madrid released this press release saying the economic value of the press coverage worldwide was along the lines of 78 million euros. You will see a spanish company (member of AMEC and host to two summits) mentioned in the article:
http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2015/05/03/madrid/1430682021_358508.html
You are SO right. Interesting that the study was done by the company about to buy Cision and Vocus in the US.
AVE’s are a bust and a lie, if only because of what the V stands for: Value. But the dollar figure reflects the Cost of buying the same space in the same publication or channel, not the Value of that space. Any CFO understands the difference, and if you use AVE’s with a CFO you will have smashed any claim to being a business person that you might have cultivated.
As a tertiary metric, Ad Cost Equivalency (ACE) is interesting to many CFOs, who simply want to understand the relative cost of different approaches to getting the word out. It is simple, straightforward and relatively representative. But if you use this adapted version of AVE, please don’t make it one of your top metrics — at best, it is a third-tier stat that deals with cost-effectiveness, not Value.