Supporting the forum launch is a discussion paper titled ‘Beyond Share of Search: What Matters for PR,' consisting of a series of short essays with practical examples. The paper challenges the advertising industry’s claims that Share of Search is both a metric and predictor for market share.

Share of Search is the number of times a brand is typed into a search engine divided by the number of times all brands in a category are typed into a search engine. It is used to measure how many searches a brand has in comparison to competitors.

Stephen Waddington, chair of the PRCA Innovation Forum, says, “The project seeks to challenge the advertising industry’s claim over Share of Search. It was created by the newly formed PRCA Innovation Forum after a series of discussions about the IPA’s assertion that Share of Search is a predictor of market share.”

The PRCA’s Innovation Forum argues that while Share of Search has applications in some areas of brand marketing practice, it is not a useful metric. The accompanying paper defines what Share of Search is and how it is used, before looking at its role in PR and brand awareness.

The project was led by Alex Judd, head of impact and planning at Clarity PR and Kristian Foged, founder of Simply Thought communications strategy consultancy. Stella Bayles, director at PR tech CoverageBook and James Crawford, managing director of PR Agency One, will present an overview of the PRCA Innovation Forum’s initial project at the AMEC Conference on 25-27 May.

Find the full discussion paper and further information on the forum here.