Measuring the value of PR

Over the last decade their have been increasing debates over the reliability of AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent). Is it a good way to measure a clients coverage and does it really tell us how much ROI our client has had as a result?

Its something I have only recently became aware of but after scanning the net and checking out some PR blogs/weekly news it appears to have been an ongoing topic for quite some time now. If I'm completely honest measurement is not something we spend much time focusing on within university, and come to think of it, I feel it should be. After all its not all about the initial publicity, we need to be able to review any successful or negative campaigns in order to know what we did right or how we could improve next time.

When I recently did a placement within a PR agency, I found myself mainly focusing on getting the coverage, and only a brief amount of my time was spent on the outcome. Obviously coverage was observed on a daily basis and mornings were spent scanning all the daily papers/mags to see how much coverage we had obtained and getting cuttings to show our clients. But when it came to presenting the findings and putting together the final presentation to show our client how much of a success the campaign had been, and how much money we had saved/made them, it didnt appear that much time went into this process.

Obviously this is only one example and I may be completely wrong. But when observing how much space we had obtained in papers/magazines it was simply a matter of checking the relevant media database, seeing how much the coverage would have costed in advertsing costs and simple - we have the cost of the coverage...

For me I wasnt really too concerned about whether it was a reliable way to tell a client how much money we have saved them, as I was working in entertainment PR, (as opposed to Financial PR) and generally they would only be expecting an "average" anyway. But my concern, after observing, was how little time was actually spent on measurement as a whole. Surely this criteria of PR should be just as important as the coverage itself? Otherwise how does the industry expect to be taken seriously as a profesion if they have no reliable findings to prove what they do?

I will be very interested to see when getting a job in the industry next year how other agencies/in-house PR companies analyse measurement as a whole, is it something that is beginning to be taken more seriously?

This is a topic that is fairly new to me so I'm keen to find out other peoples thoughts and will obviously be looking out for more news on this debate...