AMEC Congratulates PRWeek on AVE Decision

LONDON, March 21, 2011 - The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of
Communication (AMEC) today congratulates PRWeek on its decision to ban AVEs
as a method of programme measurement in its 2011 PRWeek UK Awards.

In its advice to PR professionals, PRWeek stated: "IMPORTANT: starting
from this edition of the Awards, PRWeek will not be accepting the use of AVEs
(advertising value equivalents) as a way of evaluating the success of any
campaign, because we believe such a measurement is outdated and insufficient.
We also suggest that you put more emphasis on measuring the tangible business
outcomes of a campaign (i.e. uplift in sales, proven change in audience
behaviour, post-campaign attitudinal research)."

Barry Leggetter, Executive Director of AMEC said: "We congratulate PRWeek
on this new initiative to help educate the PR industry to move away from AVEs
once and for all. The PRWeek Awards is an immensely important awards event
for PR professionals and the decision will help educate PR professionals to
finally move away from AVEs as a programme measure."

AMEC has been campaigning against the use of AVE measurement since the
adoption of its Barcelona Principles framework in Spain last summer.

David Rockland, Partner/CEO Ketchum Pleon Change and Global Research and
the architect of the Barcelona Principles, said: "This is a HUGE step to
truly abolishing the use of AVEs as every one of the hundreds of award
entries submitted to PRWeek will have been confronted with this message and
challenged to think differently and better when it comes to PR measurement."

In a follow up to its achievement in Barcelona, AMEC will explore
"Analytics and the Measurement Agenda 2015" at its 3rd European Summit in
Lisbon on the 9th and 10th of June, encouraging the industry to push the
boundaries as part of a leadership bid to finally embed programme research
and measurement at the heart of every PR programme. "Most every other
industry has embraced analytics, PR needs to start using it, too," said
Rockland.

About AMEC

AMEC, the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of
Communication is the global trade body for agencies and practitioners who
provide media evaluation and communication research. AMEC has a membership
base in 38 countries.

Contact: Barry Leggetter, Executive Director. barryleggetter at amecorg.com. +44-7748-677504