The Founder's Note | (B)OLD NEWS
On transparency, commercial pressure, and the responsibility we carry as communications professionals.
We live in a time when almost everything is trying to sell us something.
You walk outside, there's a billboard. You open social media, there are advertisements. You check your email, there's a newsletter promoting something. Even when you're not actively looking to buy anything, someone is trying to get your attention.
And I think that's partly why we've become so comfortable with exaggeration in communications.
We need to stand out. We need people to notice. Sometimes, we need to make something sound a little more exciting than it actually is.
And honestly, I don't necessarily think that's wrong.
You can have an average pistachio croissant in your pastry shop and advertise it as the best pistachio croissant someone has ever tried. Maybe it isn't. Maybe they've had a much better one somewhere else.
But there's a difference between making a croissant sound irresistible and promising something that could seriously affect someone's health, finances, or well-being.
A little exaggeration might grab attention. But what keeps the customer is the value you actually give.
That's where I believe transparency begins.
Transparency doesn't mean saying everything
I don't believe every communication needs to come with an exhaustive explanation of everything a product cannot do.
Every product has limitations. Every service has an audience it fits better than another. That's why we have targeting, positioning, and communication strategies in the first place.
If we're launching a premium pasta brand, we already have an idea of who we're talking to, what we're offering, and why someone might choose that product.
We don't need to convince every person in the world to buy it.
In fact, sometimes communicating what a product cannot do might be a good strategy. You're filtering the audience. You're helping people understand whether something is actually for them.
But I wouldn't turn that into a universal rule.
Communications is a fluid business. Every situation is different, every client is different, and every product comes with its own circumstances.
What matters is the distinction between presenting your strongest attributes and intentionally hiding something that could harm the customer.
Think about a job interview. You present your best work. You talk about your achievements. You don't necessarily open the conversation by listing every mistake you've made throughout your career.
That doesn't automatically make you dishonest.
The same applies to brands.
But when selective communication becomes a way to conceal important risks, harmful side effects, or conditions that fundamentally change what someone is buying, we're no longer just presenting the best version of something.
We're manipulating the picture.
The uncomfortable side of working in PR
There's another part of this conversation that we don't discuss enough.
Money.
Communications and marketing can be really ungrateful professions sometimes.
As professionals, we're expected to protect the client's interests, deliver results, maintain relationships, and, of course, get paid.
And when you're an employee managing an important client, the fear of losing that relationship is real.
I remember a situation earlier in my career involving a client caught up in a public controversy over market practices and consumer pricing.
I won't go into the details because that would make the client identifiable.
What matters is that we sat down to discuss how to approach the situation. My position was that we first needed to understand what was true, what wasn't, and what could responsibly be communicated.
The client didn't agree with our assessment. They wanted to defend themselves publicly and communicate that they had done nothing wrong.
I wasn't prepared to help construct that narrative.
So I offered two options: we could face the situation honestly and communicate accordingly, or we could remain silent.
Eventually, they chose silence.
Was that the most ethical outcome?
No.
But at that moment, as an employee responsible for the relationship, it was a compromise. I wasn't going to help mislead the public, and I also wasn't going to unnecessarily jeopardize the client relationship.
I think it's important to admit that.
It's easy to talk about professional ethics when there are no financial consequences attached.
It's much harder when your work, your income, or your business depends on the decision.
Today, as the founder of Provence Agency, I look at situations like that differently.
I would seriously consider ending a client relationship if the client insisted on communicating unethically.
But even that isn't a decision you can reduce to a simple rule.
If a client represents 40% of your revenue, you have to consider the consequences of losing them. You also have to consider the potential reputational damage of continuing to represent them.
There are many factors involved.
And I think we need to be able to acknowledge that complexity without using it as an excuse to do whatever the client wants.
We shouldn't forget who is on the other side
I believe consumers should think critically.
We live in a time of consumerism. We see something that interests us, and often we immediately start thinking about how to obtain it.
But people also compare products. They research prices, quality, conditions, and alternatives. Today, information is often just a search or a prompt away.
Of course, that raises another question: how reliable is the information they're finding?
So yes, consumers have a responsibility to question the promises they're being sold.
But that doesn't mean communications professionals can simply say, "Well, they should have done their own research," and avoid responsibility.
We should care about what we're helping bring to the market.
I don't think any amount of money is worth knowingly helping sell something genuinely harmful to the people around us.
And yet, I think we've become so obsessed with financials that we've forgotten something rather simple.
We live in the same world. And we give to the same world.
The work we do doesn't disappear when the campaign ends or the invoice gets paid.
It reaches people. It influences decisions. Sometimes it shapes how people spend their money, what they believe, and whom they trust.
That should matter to us.
Give the market something worth communicating
When I think about an ideal product or service launch, I don't necessarily start by imagining a brilliant campaign.
I start with the value behind it.
Do we have enough substance? Enough information? Have we done the research? Does the client understand what they're bringing to the market?
Or, as I'd put it, do we have enough meat to feed the market?
Because there's only so much a communications strategy can do when there's very little real value behind the message.
I want to work with responsible clients who understand their goals and know what their products or services can realistically deliver.
From there, we can develop the strategy, find the right audience, and communicate the value in a way that makes sense.
And six months after the launch, I don't want to judge the work only by impressions, media coverage, or sales figures.
I want to see customers who genuinely got what they paid for.
I want to see the client reaching their business goals.
And I want to see the market recognizing the value behind the company.
For me, those are all parts of a successful campaign.
The client isn't the only one we work for
There's something slightly contradictory about writing this as an agency founder.
My business depends on clients. They pay us to work. Their projects generate our revenue. Without them, we don't have much of a business.
And I understand that saying some of these things might even cost me potential clients.
But if I could change one thing about the communications industry, it would be the way we think about our responsibility.
I'd like us to treat the client and the end customer with equal consideration.
Not because they have the same role in our business, but because both matter to the outcome of our work.
Yes, we have to respect our clients.
They're paying us to work and to live. We live off them.
But we should understand that our clients live off their customers.
It's a cycle. And it's a cycle that repeats itself time after time.
Maybe what the industry needs isn't another set of rules, another ethical framework, or another polished statement about transparency.
Maybe we simply need to be more aware of that cycle.
Because the client might pay the invoice.
But the customer is the reason there's an invoice to begin with.
Andrej Petrovski
Founder & Creative Strategy Director, Provence Agency
(B)OLD NEWS — The Founder's Note
