What 178+ PR placements actually told me.

A placement is useful when it does the job the brief gave it.

The 178+ placements across these five launches establish that the stories ran. The useful question is whether the coverage reached the right audience and solved the problem each client brought us. Sales, changed minds and fame require their own evidence.

That distinction is less exciting than a giant number in 72-point type. It is also the difference between reporting and decorative maths.

The number needs a footnote.

This article looks at five published MVR launch case studies. Their reported totals add up to at least 178 placements: 37 for Prof. Bengal, 43 for Matsusaka Beef, 33 for Gold's Gym × Metcon, 38+ for Sicilian Roast and 27 for Dr. Shiba Kind Kibble.

These are campaign-report totals, rather than a statistical study of 178 individual articles. A placement is a published item recorded in the campaign coverage report. One publication can run more than one item, and syndicated versions can exist. The case studies link the public examples available on the site.

Audience figures are publication-level estimates. They can overlap and they do not tell us how many people read a particular article. That caveat is not a tiny asterisk designed to ruin the fun. It is the honest way to read the number.

Source: the five linked MVR case studies and their campaign coverage reporting. The table describes the public brief and role stated on each page. It does not claim sales or business impact.

The same number can describe five completely different jobs.

A launch can need credibility, broad awareness, one specific publication or several desks explaining the same product from different angles. Those are different assignments. They should not inherit one generic definition of success because the final report happens to use the same columns.

Matsusaka Beef had the largest reported count in this group at 43. Dr. Shiba Kind Kibble had 27, including seven national-tier outlets and three video features. The brief determines which result was more useful. Kind Kibble specifically needed business, lifestyle and entertainment coverage, so the mix matters.

Prof. Bengal needed a new feline brand introduced. Gold's Gym × Metcon needed a category launch explained. Sicilian Roast had ten years of history, a fourth branch and a refreshed menu to turn into a story that was more interesting than “restaurant opens door.” Counting them against one universal target would be convenient. It would also be fairly useless.

Estimated audience looks precise right up until you ask what it measures.

Four of the case studies show estimated publication audience. Prof. Bengal reports 97.9 million, Matsusaka Beef 11 million, Gold's Gym × Metcon 8.59 million and Sicilian Roast 6.29 million.

Those are outlet-level estimates. They can overlap between publications, and they are not verified readers of the article. Adding them together would produce a very impressive-looking number and absolutely no new evidence.

They are still useful as context. A national news site and a small specialist title do not have the same potential scale. The trouble starts when potential scale quietly becomes “people reached,” then “people persuaded,” then, through some minor miracle, “revenue generated.” The report did not prove any of those steps.

AVE is where the numbers put on a little costume.

Advertising value equivalency tries to price editorial space as if the brand had bought the same space as an advertisement. If the AVE is enormous, congratulations: the coverage ran in publications with expensive advertising rates.

It still does not tell us whether the coverage solved the business problem. AMEC's Barcelona Principles say this plainly: AVEs are not the value of communication.

I will report AVE when a client needs it for an existing reporting system, but I label what it is. I would never use it as proof of impact. A number being large does not make it wise.

Read the report in this order.

1. The agreed objective. What did the client need the work to achieve?
2. The audience. Which buyers, partners, investors or customers had to encounter the story?
3. The placements. Did the right publications and desks actually carry it, with the message intact?
4. The response evidence. Is there sourced evidence that the audience did, thought or understood something afterwards?
5. The next decision. Continue, change the story, change the channel or stop spending on PR for this goal.

The placement list sits in the middle of that sequence. It matters. It just cannot do every other measurement job by itself.

The report has to end with a recommendation.

A coverage report should tell a client what happened and what to do next. If the right outlets carried the story, keep building. If the coverage landed in the wrong places, fix the angle or the list. If the business needs immediate sales and there is no credible announcement, put the money somewhere else.

That last recommendation is not especially convenient for an agency. It is sometimes the correct one. I would rather lose the wrong brief than spend three months sending someone increasingly elaborate spreadsheets about work that was never going to solve their problem.

If you are still working out what the brief should be, the PR Scope Builder will turn the business goal into a practical starting scope. It also says when the answer is “not ready for PR yet,” which is a perfectly respectable answer.

Sources and method: MVR campaign case studies for Prof. Bengal, Matsusaka Beef, Gold's Gym × Metcon, Sicilian Roast and Dr. Shiba Kind Kibble. The placement figures and audience estimates come from the campaign reporting described on those pages. AMEC, Barcelona Principles 3.0 (PDF), is the source for the distinction between outputs, outcomes and potential impact, and for AVEs not representing the value of communication.

Related: How to read a coverage report · PR Scope Builder · Media relations · All case studies