Whether it’s someone on TV telling us they want to exit BREXIT when they mean exit the EU or your teenager who only seems to write in confusing acronyms (LOL, YOLO, STBY, THX), it’s no wonder we all detest jargon. Overly-complicated acronyms, highbrow terms and convoluted references are enough to send our already overworked brains into shut-down mode.
TeamRev like to think we do a great job of keeping things simple. We pride ourselves on getting straight to the point and using language suitable for the audience we are targeting. Naturally, there are a few terms and acronyms used regularly in PR which we have to explain to our clients. So, here’s our handy guide to five of the most common PR acronyms and phrases that cause confusion.
AVE – Advertising Value Equivalent
Simply put, AVE does what it says on the tin – how much it would have cost to buy the same space in the media where you gained PR coverage. So, if you secured a half page inclusion in your local newspaper when a half page advertisement costs £500, then that PR coverage would be worth the equivalent advertising cost of £500. Some agencies then multiply this value by up to four times because PR coverage is considered so much more valuable than advertising as it is trusted more by savvy consumers.
PR legend has it that AVE is the simplest way of ‘valuing’ PR coverage but in fact, AVE is now seen by reputable PR professionals as an outdated and unhelpful KPI. The reason being, that there really is so much more to it than just ‘the cost of space’. AVE doesn’t take into consideration the quality or relevance of the publication to your target audience, the placement of the story or the tone of the article. Why not take a look at our dedicated blogpost, all about this very subject? Trust us, it’s a goodun.
UVM – Unique Visitors per Month
This is the measure of how many people visit a website – you guessed it – per month. The ‘unique’ part means that if they visit the website multiple times in a month, it only counts them once – so you get a true picture of how many people have the potential to read your coverage. This is a great tool for measuring the popularity of a website and, therefore, the potential popularity of your article that’s been hosted on the site.
Embargo
This refers to the sharing of unannounced or sensitive information. In some cases, information is held back or confidential until after a certain date/time. A great example of temporarily embargoed information is when a new product launch is due but not available to the public until a certain date. On the day of the launch, the embargo would be lifted.
PESO Model
The PESO model refers to the four types of media – Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned. One of those blasted acronyms again! But, in short, the PESO model simply encapsulates all four components of quality marketing and PR activity and how each media integrates with the other.
TeamRev use this model as working towards an integration of paid, earned, shared and owned media helps brands to establish themselves as leaders in their industry – ask us how this approach could work for your brand at spark@revpr.co.uk
Boilerplate
This refers to a standard descriptor of a brand, which can often be found at the bottom of a press release, right before the media contact information. These are incredibly useful for journalists, as they will often include some of this information when (fingers crossed) writing a story about your brand. Just a word to the wise – try to keep yours to two or three lines. If a journalist needs to know anything else, they’ll ask.
That’s the jargon busted for now but to keep you guessing, we looked up a few abbreviations to sign off this week’s blog. So, THNX for sticking around. We’ll BRB with our next blog post, and sincerely HTH. TTYL. TTFN. #TeamRev