intelligent measurement

AVE to WMC – A wolf in sheep’s clothes?

January 29, 2010 at 5:06 pm 2 comments

The Institute for Public Relations has published a new research paper explaining a new media measurement concept called “Weighted Media Cost”.  But is this anything new – or simply the dreaded Ad Value Equivalent (AVE) in disguise – a wolf in sheep’s clothes? PR measurement guru KD Paine certainly thinks so.

I think that any measurement based on media space generated by PR efforts is bound to be flawed and increasingly illrelevant. Why?

• Generating media space is rapidly loosing importance as a PR objective – particularly with the growth of other ways that people can obtain information. These measurements typically look at print media – which is a media with a declining readership base
• Measuring how much media space was generated takes the focus away from the more important objectives to measure – what did PR efforts actually change in terms of knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of target audiences. That’s harder to do, but it’s worth the effort…!

Entry filed under: Communication evaluation, Media analysis & monitoring, PR evaluation.