Will we ever find an alternative to AVE?

30th July 2012 by Ed0

With widespread discussion around AMEC’s 4th European summit last month, the evaluation debate is once again hotting up.

Everyone in the industry wants to bury Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) once and for all, but unfortunately, it keeps coming back.

While most practitioners recognise AVE as flawed, but few are looking into new ways to measure results.

Independent research undertaken on behalf of The University of Lincoln has shown that over 95% of practitioners consider current evaluation sub-standard but less than 10% plan to improve techniques.

Evaluation doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. In fact, by introducing new and fresh techniques to measure results, your evaluation can be much more accurate.

I’ve compiled the following five alternatives to AVE, each looking at different PR objectives. Although a little more complicated than AVE, implementing these techniques is sure to impress management and clients.

1.    Recall and Retention Studies

Is your key objective to place your brand in the hearts and minds of consumers?

Why not try hosting small focus groups with your target audience? By testing their memory of key messages, you can see if your campaign was successful or not.

2.    Positivity Calculations

Not all publicity is good publicity. An AVE figure of £1,000,000 may impress clients, however if coverage is negative or doesn’t contain key messages, it is worthless.

A simple positivity score of each news item (0 for a critical piece, 2 for a neutral piece and 4 for a positive piece) can highlight your brand reputation.

3.    Impressions Calculations

Looking to make a lasting impact on your consumers?

Why not survey a sample of your audience to measure the impact of PR? Questions can be easily amended and the technique is very cost-effective.

4. Footfall Analysis

If campaign objectives are to increase event attendance, a simple footfall figure is much more useful than a book of press coverage.

This is not only cheap and accurate, but is also really useful for clients.

5. Behavioural Analysis

If your objectives are to increase purchases or attendance, simple calculations can be carried out to measure how well your PR campaign worked.

Although press cuttings are the favored way of measuring success, simple sales increases or footfall figures are much more accurate.

We all need to make better choices with evaluation and embrace new techniques to improve results. By introducing our five recommended evaluation techniques, you can see which work best for you.

What do you think about AVE? Do you use any different ways to measure results? We’d love to hear your thoughts.


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