Advertising value equivalence—PR's orphan metric

The academic approach to measurement and evaluation has long favoured social science methodologies (Broom and Dozier, 1990, Michaelson and Stacks, 2011 and Stacks, 2002), but there has been persistent, widespread practice use of advertising value equivalence (AVE) to express the economic and financial value of public relations activity. This paper investigates the evolution of AVE and discusses whether it arose from clippings agencies, press agentry or other influences on public relations, such as advertising and product promotion.

► Advertising value equivalence (AVE) has long been criticised.
► Its use dates from the 1930s, but expanded from the 1960s onwards.
► It is more widely used than social science methods for effective judgement.
► AVE's extensive use shows divergence between publicity and two-way communications.