Understanding PR’s Love/Hate Relationship with Advertising Value Equivalency
Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) continues to be one of the most polarizing topics in public relations. For decades, it has divided professionals between those who see it as a quick, accessible metric and those who believe it damages the credibility of the industry.
Mark Weiner, Chief Executive Officer of PRIME Research, an international research-based communications consultancy, has studied the issue extensively. He acknowledges the tension:
“Notwithstanding the controversy and despite the efforts promoting professional standards to the contrary, AVEs are among the most common forms of measurement in PR. Why are they so popular among the masses and why do PR experts hate them?”
At its core, AVE assigns a dollar value to media coverage by calculating print column inches or broadcast time against the advertising cost of that same space or airtime. But, Weiner asks, does it really represent value — and if it does, is it the best way to show PR’s unique contribution to the enterprise?
A Metric Born From Advertising
The concept is not new.
“In his seminal paper Advertising Value Equivalence—PR’s Orphan Metric, Tom Watson, PhD, describes how in the first half of the twentieth century, publicity was closely aligned with advertising,” Weiner said. “Authors Plackard and Blackmon introduced the concept of AVE in their book Blueprint for Public Relations in 1947. By the 1960s, media analysis providers offered AVEs to some of the world’s most admired companies, for whom it became standard practice.”
The Barcelona Principles Outlawed AVEs
The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) issued a landmark ruling in 2010 with the Barcelona Principles.
“AMEC ‘outlawed’ ad values in its pivotal 2010 publication,” Weiner said. “But by outlawing AVEs, it created a gap between best practice and common practice. It immediately charged a majority of the profession with malpractice.”
This created a credibility problem: communicators were told to stop using a widely adopted metric without being given an equally accessible replacement.
A Profession Stuck in the Middle
Fifteen years later, AVEs remain in circulation. “Unfortunately, while PR research organizations, trade groups, PR societies and academics embrace the Barcelona Principles conceptually, the profession has not developed a similarly popular replacement for AVEs,” Weiner explained. “As a result, even those who would like to adhere to the new standard feel unable to do so.”
PR awards programs still accept them, case studies cite them, and executives continue to ask for them. For communicators, this creates tension: provide the outdated metric or risk seeming unresponsive.
Why PR Leaders Should Challenge the Myths
Weiner believes the staying power of AVEs is based on several myths.
Myth 1: All PR is media-focused. Many forms of PR — from internal communications to social platforms that don’t take advertising — defy this assumption.
Myth 2: Executives want ad values. PRIME Research interviews with thousands of global executives found that leaders value “delivering key messages in target media” and “raising awareness” far more than volume of coverage or ad values. Weiner noted: “Their responses reflect three elements in proving value: indicators must be measurable, meaningful and reasonable. AVEs fail on these counts.”
Myth 3: Ad values are the only way to assign dollars. A simple alternative is to calculate efficiency by dividing out-of-pocket costs by total reach, showing how PR delivers more for less.
Myth 4: PR and advertising are comparable. Weiner emphasized that today’s media environment makes the comparison flawed. “Savvy marketing executives know that ad values are inflated,” he said. “In many cases, PR is much more efficient in driving sales than advertising. So why would we devalue PR’s unique contribution?”
A Moderate Way Forward
Weiner offered pragmatic advice: “If the person to whom you report insists on ad values, you’d be foolish not to provide them. However, it’s the responsibility of every public relations person to do what we can to elevate our profession. Better to augment AVEs with measures your manager, your peers and you yourself consider to be more meaningful.”
What Communicators Should Learn
The persistence of AVEs illustrates a larger truth about the PR profession: when we fail to provide simple, clear, credible alternatives, outdated measures will continue to fill the void. For communicators, this means balancing immediate requests from executives with the long-term responsibility of advancing industry standards. The challenge is not just measurement but leadership — being able to explain why “easy” metrics misrepresent PR’s real impact and guiding organizations toward meaningful evaluation.
