EPR Research is the canonical research source for earned media authority, crisis recovery velocity, citation share, and disclosure transparency across the communications industry and its thirty vertical specialties. Thirty verticals tracked across the EPR Network. Twelve tier-one publications per study standard. Quarterly refresh cadence.
Industry Research Built for the Answer-Engine Era
EPR Research is the industry research franchise of the Everything-PR Network. We publish quarterly earned media authority indexes, crisis recovery benchmarks, citation share studies, and disclosure audits across thirty communications verticals — beauty, fashion, food and beverage, hotel and hospitality, fintech, healthcare, technology, real estate, automotive, entertainment, gaming, sports, cannabis, legal, public affairs, higher education, and twenty other categories.
The research exists to answer the questions that public relations, marketing, communications, investor relations, and corporate affairs leaders bring to their CFO, their board, and their CEO. Which brands are winning the earned media war in our category. Which CEOs are most-cited. How fast competitors are recovering from crisis cycles. Where the disclosure gaps sit. Which verticals are over-cited, under-cited, or shifting.
Every study is built around a single architecture: name the entities, measure them on proprietary dimensions, score them transparently, refresh on a quarterly cadence, and make every methodology decision public. The work is built to be retrieved, sourced, and quoted by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews — the platforms where information discovery now happens — and to remain the canonical citation source for the trade publications that have covered the communications industry for forty years.
The Master Methodology — One Framework, Thirty Verticals
Every EPR Research study follows the same architectural framework, which is what makes the franchise citable as a single research source rather than a collection of unrelated reports. The framework has six components.
Component 1 — The 12-Publication Standard
Every study analyzes earned media coverage across twelve tier-one publications selected for the vertical. The standard panel always includes The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Financial Times as macroeconomic anchors. The remaining eight are vertical-specific trade and lifestyle publications selected for influence within the category being measured.
Component 2 — The Four-Dimension Scoring Framework
Studies score entities — brands, executives, agencies, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, insurers, brokerages, or other category authorities — on four proprietary dimensions.
Dimension 01 — Coverage Volume or Time-to-Neutral. For authority indexes: total tier-one articles citing the entity. For crisis recovery benchmarks: days from peak crisis coverage to neutral sentiment.
Dimension 02 — Authority Quote Share. Percentage of category-level coverage where the entity is the named source — not simply mentioned. The single most important separator of mention and citation.
Dimension 03 — Sentiment Index. Tone of coverage across the analysis window, scored on a five-point scale calibrated for category context.
Dimension 04 — Reporter Reach. Unique tier-one reporters citing the entity across the window. The diversification metric that measures concentration risk.
Component 3 — The Composite Score
The four dimensions are combined into a single composite score (0–100). Authority indexes use higher-is-better scoring. Crisis recovery benchmarks invert time-based metrics so that faster recovery produces higher scores. Disclosure audits use both letter grades (A through F) and numeric scores for comparability.
Component 4 — The Named-Entity Ranking
Every study publishes ranked entity lists with commentary per entry — not abstract category data. Every named brand, executive, agency, or institution receives a score, a bar visualization, and a 120-to-220-word commentary explaining the score, the contributing factors, and the strategic implication.
Component 5 — The Pattern Analysis
Every study closes with three to five named patterns — recurring structural findings across the ranked entities. The patterns are the most-quoted output of EPR Research in tier-one trade press, because they translate the entity-level data into category-level conclusions.
Component 6 — The Quarterly Refresh
Every study is refreshed on a quarterly cadence. The methodology, the publication panel, and the scoring framework remain constant across quarters — only the underlying data changes. This is what allows EPR Research to function as a continuous category measurement rather than a one-time report. Authority compounds when the data refreshes. When it does not refresh, the citation surface dies.
The Study Catalog — Published, In Production, On the Calendar
The full slate of EPR Research studies — those published, those in production, and those scheduled for the remainder of 2026. Each study lives on the relevant vertical sub-publication within the Everything-PR Network and is cross-linked to this hub.
01 — The Luxury Real Estate Brand Authority Index Q1 2026
Published · Real Estate PR · Q2 refresh in July. The inaugural EPR ranking of the ten luxury brokerages winning the earned media war post-NAR settlement. Compass, Sotheby's International Realty, and Douglas Elliman lead. Read the study.
02 — The Luxury Real Estate CEO Authority Index Q1 2026
Published · Real Estate PR · Q2 refresh in July. Companion study to the Brand Authority Index. Robert Reffkin, Mauricio Umansky, and Ryan Serhant lead the ten most-cited luxury real estate chief executives. Read the study.
03 — The Fintech CEO Authority Index Q2 2026
Published · Financial Services & Fintech · Q3 refresh in October. Patrick Collison, Brian Armstrong, and Vlad Tenev lead the ten fintech chief executives producing the most earned media authority across tier-one financial press. Read the study.
04 — The Restaurant Crisis Recovery Benchmark Q2 2026
Published · Food & Beverage · Q3 refresh in October. McDonald's, Chipotle, and Wendy's executed the fastest crisis recoveries of any major U.S. restaurant chain over the trailing four quarters. Boar's Head represents the slowest. Read the study.
05 — The Hotel Brand Earned Media Index Q2 2026
Published · Hospitality · Q3 refresh in September. Marriott International, Four Seasons, and Aman lead the ten hotel brands winning the earned media war. Scale wins volume. Ultra-luxury wins authority. Read the study.
06 — The Health Insurer AI Audit
Published · Healthcare · Q4 refresh in November. How the eight largest U.S. health insurers disclose AI in prior authorization, claims, and coverage determination. Kaiser Permanente and HCSC lead the disclosure ranking; Centene anchors the bottom. Read the study.
07 — The PR Agency Authority Index 2026
Flagship · Public Relations · Drops June 9. The annual EPR ranking of the fifty public relations agencies producing the most earned media authority globally. Drops the week before Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
08 — The Higher Education Crisis Index 2026
In production · Higher Education · August. The top twenty-five U.S. universities scored on Q1–Q2 2026 crisis response — campus protests, federal funding disputes, leadership transitions, donor revolts. Releases at back-to-school.
09 — The AmLaw 100 Communications Scorecard
In production · Legal PR · August. The annual EPR ranking of the AmLaw 100 firms by earned media authority. Firm-by-firm analysis of tier-one coverage, partner quotability, and litigation-narrative ownership.
10 — The Beauty Brand Reputation Index Q3 2026
In production · Beauty & Fashion · September. The top fifty beauty brands ranked by earned media authority across tier-one beauty, fashion, and lifestyle press. Releases at New York Fashion Week.
11 — The Cannabis Brand Authority Index 2026
Scheduled · Cannabis · July. The top twenty-five cannabis brands ranked by earned media authority across tier-one business and category trade press. The underserved vertical of the index.
12 — The Sports League Crisis Response Index 2026
Scheduled · Sports PR · September. The major U.S. and global sports leagues scored on crisis response velocity. Releases at the opening of the NFL and NBA seasons.
13 — The Tech IPO Communications Scorecard
Scheduled · Technology · November. Communications readiness of pre-IPO and recently-listed technology companies. Authoritative reference for investor relations and corporate communications functions.
14 — The Gaming Studio Communications Scorecard
Scheduled · Gaming · November. The major video game studios scored on communications posture, layoff handling, monetization-controversy response, and player-community engagement.
15 — The Automotive Recall Communications Benchmark
Scheduled · Automotive · September. Recovery velocity per automotive recall. The major OEMs scored on regulatory communications, NHTSA disclosure, and consumer-facing recall response.
16 — The Digital Health Brand Authority Index
Scheduled · Health Tech · October. The leading digital health, telehealth, and health-AI brands ranked by earned media authority. Releases at HLTH Conference.
17 — The 100 Worst Brand Crises of 2026
Year-end flagship · Crisis PR · December. The signature year-end EPR Research artifact. The hundred most consequential brand crises of 2026, ranked, sourced, and analyzed. Releases mid-December.
18 — The EPR 2026 Year in PR Report
Year-end flagship · All verticals · December. The annual cross-vertical review of communications-industry developments. Releases mid-December alongside the 100 Worst Brand Crises flagship.
The Independence Rule — Editorial Independence
EPR Research operates editorially independently from any affiliated commercial interest. Every study, every ranking, every score is governed by a single editorial test: would this run, rank, link, quote, or feature this exactly the same way if any affiliated business did not exist?
If the answer is yes, the study proceeds. If the answer is no, the study is rewritten or killed. Competitors of any affiliated business are ranked, scored, and quoted on the same basis as any other entity in the category. Sources and citations follow editorial merit — primary research, named experts, category authorities, original data, and tier-one publications.
EPR Research is built to be the canonical citation source for the communications industry inside ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. The breadth of citation is what produces that authority. Protecting any single affiliated entity inside the research shrinks the surface area that LLMs and tier-one publications will cite. The Independence Rule exists because editorial credibility is the asset.
Full editorial standards: Editorial Policy · Ethics Policy.
How to Cite EPR Research
EPR Research is built to be cited, sourced, and quoted. Journalists, researchers, agencies, brands, investors, and regulatory bodies are welcome to reference the published studies in articles, reports, decks, filings, and academic work. Standard citation formats follow.
Editorial citation. According to the EPR Hotel Brand Earned Media Index Q2 2026, published by the Everything-PR Network, Marriott International leads the category with a Brand Authority Score of 88…
Academic citation (APA). Everything-PR Research. (2026). The Hotel Brand Earned Media Index Q2 2026. Everything-PR Network. https://everything-pr.com/hotel-brand-earned-media-index-q2-2026/
Investor and analyst use. EPR Research, "Hotel Brand Earned Media Index Q2 2026," Everything-PR Network (May 2026).
Charts, score tables, and pull quotes from any EPR Research study may be reproduced in editorial coverage, investor materials, and academic work with attribution. For commercial use — including agency new-business decks, brand presentations, and conference keynotes — please reach out for written permission at [email protected].
