AVEs Are Porn for PR

AVEs are the Playboy centerfold of public relations measurement; a fold-out fantasy version of ideal research, eagerly consumed by the masses to fulfill their somewhat distasteful but otherwise unattainable measurement desires. 

That's my opinion (actually only part of my opinion, see the following post). And definitely not that of the recent 2009 IPR Summit On Measurement in Portsmouth, NH, which hosted a reasoned and deliberate debate on AVEs. I sat through an excellent panel question-and-answer discussion session (including measurement heavy-hitters David Rockland, David Michaelson, Angie Jeffrey, and Richard Bagnall), followed by much lively debate over lunch.

What was clearly expressed at the Summit was that AVE concepts can be and have been a useful and valid component of public relations research. Unfortunately, this valid and useful AVE-based research addresses only a very limited area of PR activities. And has nothing to do with comparisons to advertising, nor with putting a monetary value on public relations results.

When it comes to the common, garden variety AVEs, serious public relations measurement thinkers consider them to be a pale imitation of valid research, produced for the legion of clients who eagerly lust after a direct, dollar-value comparison to advertising, and who will pay good money for a tarted-up imitation of real measurement. 

Sounds like porn for PR to me.

And therein lies the bitter irony of the AVE: While the measurement cognoscenti know that a very refined version of AVEs can be a valid and useful technique for a narrow range of inquiry, vast masses of clients eagerly purchase crude versions of AVEs to use in completely invalid and inappropriate pseudo-research. 

Which leads us to the dirty secret of the measurement industry: The demand is so strong for some way to compare PR to advertising and to put a monetary value on PR, that otherwise diligent, upstanding, and ethical measurement companies sell AVEs to their clients. Even though they know full well the limitations of the data and the bogus conclusions their clients will draw. 

As one very skilled but pragmatic researcher from a very large measurement company said, "I get AVEs for free, and my clients want them, so why not?" That is, given that a client has signed up for media monitoring or other measurement services, the data is there and the software can make crude AVE calculations at no extra cost. 

So why shouldn't this product be sold to clients, who are, after all, extremely eager to purchase it?  -- Bill Paarlberg, Editor, The Measurement Standard