“Have you sent the release to the media? Make sure to emphasize the embargo date and use the updated boilerplate below the press release when you send it. Once the coverage comes through our media monitoring, please provide the media AVE,” requested the client.

For people from outside of the PR industry, the request above might sound like someone talking gibberish. Even for someone who studied Public Relations, some might not understand what the client ment because those words are not taught in campus. But working in the PR industry, whether as a consultant or in-house PR, we need to learn the glossary of Public Relations to be able to meet what the client/company needs.

To make it easy for those who are keen to learn about PR glossary, the terms will be divided into two umbrella activities of PR. The first one is media engagement, this is basic yet essential. The media engagement has various activities, such as press conferences, media interviews, media visits, sending out press releases, media placement, and more. The second is media monitoring, this is where we monitor the brand/company news in both traditional and digital media to measure success. 

Let’s dive more deeply into some of the terms.

• Media engagement

• Boilerplate:

Distributing a press release is a daily activity for a PR. At the end of a press release, we usually find a brief description of the company before the media contact information. It is called a boilerplate, to highlight who is the company and what it does.

• Byline:

Articles that are authored by a thought leader at a company about a certain topic in which they are influential such as company point of view, advice or tips. Used as part of a robust media engagement and often preferred by the media and PR agencies as they are easy to publish.

• Embargo:

This is when a PR contacts the journalist before a press conference to give them a preview of the information to be announced, and then asking if they are interested in the information to reach an agreement where the journalist may not publish the news before a certain time. Usually, this type of activity is used for product launching where the PR wants to have the journalist's interest in the product but does not want the news to be published before the launch day.

• Off the record:

We usually hear this during an interview with the media, meaning that the information provided by the spokesperson is strictly intended only as background information for a reporter and which cannot be published or used in any way.

• Media monitoring

• Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE):

Advertising Value Equivalency was created to provide  measurable value on the activities that have been carried out. AVEs are calculated by measuring the column inches (in the case of print), or seconds (in the case of broadcast media) and multiplying these figures by the respective medium’s advertising rates (per inch or second). The resulting number is what it would have cost to place an advertisement of that size in that medium. By assessing all of your media impressions in this manner, and aggregating all such calculations, you can assign an overall AVE to your coverage within a certain period.

Those are the five terms that are widely used in the PR world, but there are still many other terms that have not been discussed. What other terms would you like to know? Write in the comments column.