Just Say No

There's a reason they say that well behaved women rarely make history. There seems to be a large body of people who think I've been naughty of late with my  previous post and my stand on The Barcelona Principles. So first let me say thank you to all who have joined this debate. So far the Anti-AVE  crowd is winning the battle, with by far the most comments, tweets and retweets expressing support or even surprise that there is even a debate on the topic. Secondly, to the rest of you, I'm sorry you're offended/appalled/or think I'm rude, but I'm trying to save my profession (and yes, maybe make some history.) 

By far the most controversial part of this debate is my suggestion on making the Barcelona Principles real  -- in other words, give them some teeth so finally practices will change.  That means rejecting award entrants that use them, and rejecting companies that provide them. While I apologize to my good friends at all the various clipping agencies and PR firms that think that this false metric is still "necessary" --i.e. they're still making money selling some form of it, or justifying their existances with it,  I will not apologize for calling for action on this topic. For more than two decades my peers have bad-mouthed the metric, while continuing to provide it saying that "the client demands it."   And my respsone has been, if the client demanded drugs would you provide them just to get the business? 

If people called AVEs what they are -- bad science, dubious research and false data -- I  bet your clients would at least listen to some alternatives. And if you presented it that way to the Accounting or Legal department, I'm sure they'd drop the notion like a hot potato.

The way I explained it to a distraught PR person that I had just refused to help on this issue -- Do you really think that a stack of clippings is the "value" that you and your peers bring to this client? Of course not. The value in this case is in the increased traffic to the web site that yields increased revenue to the organization.

Lets face it, the industry used AVEs because they were easy, readily provided at the top of every clip if you bought them from a cliping agency.  And clipping agencies promoted them because it's a good revenue stream in an era when the whole idea of "clippings" appears increasingly quaint. 

But if we as a profession are going to be taken seriously, and we're going to stick to our Barcelona Principles, then we need to do what is right, not what is easy. 

And that requires breaking eggs, not walking on eggshells.

Comments

[Chris Morrison]

Further to Sean's point, it would definitely be easier to stay silent since we are a company that does currently offer AVE. It has rarely been a suggested metric, but it continues to be one that is requested.

I'm of two minds for AVE. One one hand we offer some very compelling analyses that SHOULD steer most companies away from using it. But on the flip side it has no doubt helped us win business from time-to-time, so guilty as charged for not resisting that temptation. In a perfect world, we would just turn the business away. But as a company who has bootstrapped itself and depends on organic growth, we might be handing over a sale we've been working on for six months to a competitor.

Now, having said we offer AVE doesn't mean we aren't working to move people away from it whenever possible. I don't think it's a completely evil metric if done consistently to show a trend over time, but it is generally a misused metric...which therein lies the main problem. Our strategy to date has been to support AVE, but educate clients as we go along about other more interesting outcome-based metrics. We are starting to really push more and more into outcome based measurements, and as we do I'm confident less and less companies will request AVE. Education about measurement has been one of the biggest struggles since we started as a company, and it's hard to educate if you don't have students to teach.

So, I completely support your push Katie to move our profession away from AVE. I'm hoping your approach will help stop many cold turkey. But we're approaching it from a less radical way of changing opinion on it over time. I'm confident our different strategies on this issue will eventually result in more insightful analysis for the profession as a whole. We're getting closer to that day, I think it might just take a little bit more time and education.

[David Geddes]

Katie -- I applaud your work to get rid of the bad science, dubious research and false data. This undermines the credibility of PR in general and PR research in particular. Other areas where we are seeing a lot of bad science, dubious research, and false data is the hot area of measuring influence and measuring engagement.

[CommAMMO]

Gaa! The AVE condemnation asks businesses to REMAIN SILENT. Goodness, it's a long time since game theory class...

[CommAMMO]

Katie -- in game theory, this is a prisoner's dilemma.

There are two criminals arrested and separated. Prisoner1 is told that if he confesses, he'll receive a light sentence.

If he keeps silent and the other criminal confesses, Prisoner1 will receive a heavy sentence.

If both confess, they each receive a light sentence. If both remain silent they're free to go.

The best alternative for both prisoners is to remain silent. But each has to trust that the other will remain silent to win the game. Invariably, the prisoners will confess rather than risk staying silent.

The AVE condemnation asks businesses to confess, running the risk that other businesses will offer AVE to clients and steal market share. Even if all existing companies stopped offering AVE, someone would (correctly) note the continued demand and start a company offering AVE. This is a demand-side problem, not a supply side problem, imo.

You're aware of my somewhat conflicted opinions in this regard.

I can't support a boycott -- but will continue the educational campaign, push for more PR education for business people, and strive for better measurement solutions that are as easy to understand as AVE but based on better science.

Respectfully,
Sean