5 of Our Biggest PR Peeves!

How to evaluate pr is a hotly debated topic in the pr industry, and in the Paskett PR office!

The issue regularly comes up and there seems to be no set formulae for the best way to put a value on what we do and the results that we achieve. Certain factors such as circulation, breakdown of the coverage by publication type and readership are key metrics but there is no best practice for putting a price on the coverage to help clients calculate their ROI.

AVE (advertising value equivalent) was the system once used in the industry whereby a value is placed on the coverage to represent what the space would have cost if it were bought as advertising. However, there are many flaws with this – it doesn’t take placement within the publication account or perhaps most worryingly, the tonality and sentiment. The epitome of all publicity is good publicity?!

Last week we took part in a live webinar discussing the “alternatives to AVE that actually really work” and it was very valuable, as well as sparking some interesting discussions among the team.

The overriding message of the webinar is that AVE is dead and that it is not the value of communication.

I’m a firm believer in this and we’re constantly striving to find new ways of evaluating our work. Therefore I’m putting AVE in my list of PR Pet Peeves – here’s my top 5 list (in no particular order)

1. AVE
2. The use of phrase “pr that” – it doesn’t make grammatical sense! “PR” isn’t a verb! (On that note, whilst writing this I found a great post from @abrinkman about the topic – https://www.cision.com/us/2010/04/to-pr-or-not-to-pr-pr-is-not-a-verb/
3. Similar to the above, the use of “pr” to describe a job title for pr practioner. “I’m looking for the pr for” – again, this doesn’t make sense!
4. On a less ranty note, poor images. These can really make or break a client’s chance of getting coverage. Not just the content of the photo but also the resolution and quality of the shot
5. Getting a bite but not reeling it in – when you get a lead on a story that will be a big hit and make the client very happy. You send over all the information but then hear nothing back!

Rant over! What are your PR Pet Peeves?

Holly