Why Media Coverage Varies in Quality and Where Brands Can Find Trust

Every year, marketing directors and business owners are tasked with making a difficult decision; one that many get wrong. This is not because they lack the intelligence or experience to make an informed choice, but because they have never had the data necessary to make it correctly.

When a brand chooses to invest in earned media, someone along the chain has to actually decide on one or more publications. In the absence of hard consumer data, this choice tends to default to instinct. The Publication Trust Index, a 2026 study commissioned by public relations agency Baden Bower, suggests that most brands select publications based on general reputation as opposed to audience data; in this way, they leave measurable value on the table.

Whatever marketing director or owner is charged with this task will pick a brand they recognize, secure their placement, and move on. They never consider whether a different publication might have generated more trust, more purchase intent, or more credibility with the audience that matters most to its business.

Ranking Methodology and Generalized Insight

Baden Bower considers its study to be the first large-scale attempt to replace that instinct with hard numbers. The agency surveyed adults across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia between early and mid-January of this year, asking them to rate major publications across six trust dimensions: credibility, prestige, relevance, memorability, purchase influence, and shareability.

Baden Bower reports its margin of error at plus or minus about two percentage points at a near 100% confidence level. The most trusted publication among those ranked received a composite score of nearly 90 out of 100 points, while the lowest was weighted closer to 70. Brands choosing based on trust, for instance, might find that disparity to be notable. Its results have the potential to confirm some industry assumptions and overturn others.

For a brand attempting to make a generalized media investment, Baden Bower’s overall rankings could provide a useful starting point. Some brands carry the strongest trust signal, others hold the strongest institutional weight, and certain brands perform better with digitally-native audiences.

These observances are valuable, but Baden Bower argues that these overall rankings mask a more important finding. That insight emerges only when the data is segmented by industry vertical, information that could shift the calculation for nearly every brand invested in the earned media environment.

Why Vertical-Specific Data Makes a Difference

When the same respondents to the Publication Trust Index survey are filtered by the industry they associate with each publication, rankings noticeably shift. When focused more on audience than general trust, many publications achieve a higher rank; depending on the category, some publications that fell short of the highest general score outpace the highest placed publication in that category.

A financial services firm that chooses the general highest-ranked publication over the one that performs best among finance audiences is actually sacrificing a few trust points. While some publications are only separated by a distance of one or two points, depending on their category, the gap between others is as great as ten or more. It is in these areas that brands may not be maximizing audience reach.

Ultimately, the brand that chooses the highest general trust brand over the most trusted brand in their specific category is leaving trust points on the table, sacrificing vertical-specific credibility for the sake of a more recognizable name.

“Brands have been choosing publications based on how impressed they are personally, not based on how their audience responds,” CEO of Baden Bower, AJ Ignacio, said. “A founder in fintech who is personally impressed by [one brand should know that the other scores] higher with the finance audience that actually decides whether to trust them. That is the kind of data that changes a media strategy.”

How Trust Can Impact a Purchasing Decision

Baden Bower’s study did not stop at measuring trust in an abstract sense; it attempted to measure whether trust converts into commercial action. The agency considers the answer to be unambiguous.

Among respondents exposed to one publication’s editorial coverage, more than 70% stated that they were more likely to purchase, while just over 6% said that they were less likely. Another drove an almost 70% increase in purchase intent, while another moved just over 60% toward a purchase decision. In each case, fewer than 10% said that editorial coverage made them less likely to buy a given product as it was advertised by the publication.

For brands evaluating the return on a single earned media investment, these figures could reframe the entire conversation. A single editorial placement in a high-trust publication does not merely build awareness or improve audience perception; it moves a significant percentage of readers closer to a transaction. That goes beyond a mere branding exercise and looks more like a demand-generation mechanism.

A Focus on Baden Bower as a Brand and Agency

Baden Bower, who commissioned the Publication Trust Index study this year, has built its business around this kind of precise commercial logic. Founded in 2018, the brand claims to guarantee editorial placements in the various publications measured in its study, as well as hundreds more around the world. Baden Bower further claims to have published thousands of news features for its clients across several countries. The model inverts what one would expect from traditional PR industry economics.

Where a conventional agency might charge retainers somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 per month without guarantee of placement, Baden Bower states that it will name the publication before the client signs and offer a money-back guarantee if the story does not go live. What the rest of the PR industry refuses to promise, Baden Bower states that it will guarantee.

Recently, Baden Bower has claimed a high percentage of year-over-year revenue growth, as well as a comparatively significant increase in net profit. The firm currently states that it operates with a team of more than 250 across offices in New York, London, Sydney, Abu Dhabi, and the British Virgin Islands. On Reviews.io, it holds a five out of five rating from 200 reviews, and a 3.9 on Trustpilot from 153 reviews. Its Glassdoor profile shows a five out of five rating from approximately 20 reviewers.

The Generational Divide That Marketers Are Ignoring

Among the most consequential findings reported by Baden Bower is associated with age. Trust in editorial coverage increases steadily across age brackets, while trust in social media declines at a similar rate.

Social media leads editorial coverage in trust among respondents aged 18 to 24, about 80% to 70%. By age 35 to 44, that gap reverses to the point that editorial coverage leads about 80% to 50%. By age 55 to 64, that spread widens further to about 90% to 30%. Among consumers aged 65 and over, editorial trust reaches a height of just over 90%, while social media trust falls to a low of just under 20%. Opinions on paid advertising remain flat and low across every age group, hovering between about 35 and 45%.

“The brands spending heavily on social media advertising to reach 50-year-old decision-makers are paying to reach them in one channel where those decision-makers are least likely to trust what they see,” Ignacio continued. “The data does not say social media is worthless; it says it is the wrong tool for the wrong audience at the wrong price.”

The Format That Carries the Most Weight

Baden Bower’s research also measured the media coverage format that consumers found most credible. Dedicated editorial features ranked first at just under 40%, ahead of guest contributions at just under 25%, interview or quote inclusions at just over 20%, and listicle mentions closer to 15%. Certainly, this finding has several direct implications for how brands and agencies might structure their earned media strategies moving forward.

A brief mention in a listicle, although valuable for visibility, transfers less than half of the credibility of a full editorial feature, according to Baden Bower’s study. A guest contribution, where the brand’s own executive writes the piece, carries roughly 60% of the trust that a third-party editorial feature would. For brands whose primary objective is credibility transfer, the full editorial feature remains the most effective format available, and by a wide margin.

Reflecting this logic, Baden Bower structures its own services around three tiers. One tier targets high-domain-authority publications selected for Google search visibility and artificial intelligence (AI) discoverability. A second focuses on household name publications, where the value lies in the logo and the trust signal it conveys. A third targets geographic saturation in a client’s local or national market.

Baden Bower states that its annual retainer packages range from $1,950 per month to $4,000 per month, whereas month-to-month packages range from $3,900 to $8,000. As of writing, the agency claims that the majority of its one-off clients will convert to retainer agreements within six months. The performance-based segment of the U.S. PR industry, where agencies guarantee outcomes rather than billing for hours, would appear to be growing faster than the traditional retainer market.

Data That’s Impacting a Major Industry

The Publication Trust Index is one of four studies that Baden Bower fielded in early 2026, surveying a combined thousands of respondents across editorial trust, earned versus paid media return on investment (ROI), publication-level consumer trust rankings, and CEO media visibility. Baden Bower asserts that this dataset now stands among the most comprehensive in the industry.

Historically, the PR industry has avoided producing this kind of research publicly. Actually proving that editorial coverage is good for business seems like a benefit; however, it involves showing what publications might work better than others and for what audiences, introducing a level of specificity that most agencies would prefer to leave unmeasured. After all, some publications are easier to secure than others.

By releasing this data and going so far as to name the publications involved, Baden Bower has made the opposite bet. The agency therefore claims to deliver placements not where they are most convenient to secure, but in the specific outlets that its own research would suggest matter most. Baden Bower’s full methodology, survey instrument, and raw data tables for the Publication Trust Index are currently available on request from the agency’s research division.