The reputation economy is real but public relations is still working to prove its contribution

30 Mar

There is a growing body of evidence showing that reputation has financial value. What’s still missing is proof of how public relations contributes to it.

Burson's The Global Reputation Economy report, released in January, and Echo Research's UK Reputation Valuation Report 2026, published last week, both conclude that corporate reputation is a financially material asset that can be measured and managed.

Echo finds that 28% of FTSE 350 market value - £841 billion - is attributable to reputation.
Burson estimates that reputation delivers an average 4.78% additional annual shareholder return across a global sample, producing a $7.07 trillion figure.

Two models, different questions

Echo is measuring a stock. It asks: at any given moment, how much of a company’s value is based on trust rather than tangible or financial assets? Burson is measuring a flow. It asks: over time, how much additional return does reputation generate beyond what financial fundamentals would predict?

Echo draws on a narrowly focused group of C-suite executives and investment professionals through Britain’s Most Admired Companies. Burson draws on a much broader set of stakeholders, including consumers and opinion leaders.

There is also a question of sampling: Echo covers the FTSE 350, a clearly defined population with consistent financial disclosure.

Burson’s 66-company global sample is not disclosed. Burson’s model reflects a broad, varied global sample, with results ranging from $2 million to $202 billion in reputation return. This suggests the findings are most useful directionally rather than as precise benchmarks.

Methodological differences aside, the two frameworks converge on the dimensions that drive reputation value: products, leadership, innovation, financial performance, governance and people management are common to both.

They agree on one point: workplace reputation is systematically underinvested. With AI reshaping the workforce, both reports suggest it is about to matter more than any other lever.

The attribution gap

Taken together, both reports make a convincing case that reputation has financial value. But they stop short of answering the question that matters most for public relations practice.

Both approaches measure reputation as an outcome. They capture how organisations are perceived and translate that into financial terms.

What they are not designed to do is explain the mechanisms through which those perceptions are shaped and the role of communications activity within that process.

This is the attribution gap at the centre of the reputation economy.

Progress, but not yet proof

Public relations has historically measured what was easy - media outputs - rather than what mattered. It has failed to build the research infrastructure needed to connect communications activity to financial value with any precision.

There has been some progress.

AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework is the most credible attempt the field has made to bring discipline to measurement. It has shifted practice away from outputs towards outcomes and established a shared language linking communications activity to organisational objectives.

But in practice, most public relations measurement falls far short of financial impact. The frameworks create the structure to make the connection, but they are not yet widely used to demonstrate value in the terms that finance or management expect.

At the same time, a broader body of work is emerging that connects narrative, trust and long-term enterprise value. The integrated reporting movement is part of this shift, as organisations begin to treat narrative and disclosure as strategic assets.

Technology may hasten this change. As AI systems increasingly interpret corporate disclosures alongside human stakeholders, it becomes easier to trace how narrative signals move through markets and shape perception. Burson’s use of AI to monitor reputation in real time points in this direction.

What practitioners need to do

The evidence base is stronger than it has ever been. But evidence alone does not close the attribution gap. That requires four things from practitioners.

Claim reputation as the primary unit of contribution - and be able to articulate specifically which dimensions a programme is designed to influence, and why.
Get closer to business performance data - demonstrating that communications activity connects to business value requires access to financial and operational data that most functions are never given.
Use the Integrated Evaluation Framework at its most demanding level - setting objectives in financial or operational terms, measuring against them longitudinally, and reporting in the language that finance and senior management use.
Engage with the valuation research as methodology rather than advocacy - using the dimensions Echo and Burson identify to diagnose where an organisation is underperforming and map communications investment accordingly.

Where this leaves the field

Echo and Burson provide strong evidence that the reputation economy is real. The academic literature broadly supports this, even if it debates the scale.

The question is no longer whether reputation has value. The challenge now is to show how that value is created. That means closing the distance between reputation valuation and communications evaluation.

The evidence base to do this has never been stronger. What’s missing is the attribution.

If this is the work you’re doing, my Communications Management and Leadership course is designed to address exactly this strategic challenge. We have three places remaining on Tuesday, 21 April. Further dates in May and June.