Cool story. Now show me.
Words Don’t Land if the Brand Doesn’t Behave
TL;DR: If your brand acts one way and advertises another, people notice. So do the creatives telling your story. And nothing kills great work faster than a message the audience (and the agency) can’t believe.
If you have to tell people you are funny, you are not funny.
The same is true for brands.
You can call a brand funny, smart, or compassionate all you want, but if it does not act that way, your words land empty.
This is the quiet heartbreak of our industry. We are hired to tell great stories, and sometimes the story our client wants to tell truly is great. But when the product, service, or culture behind it does not match, we are left holding a narrative we cannot defend. It is not that we are bad at our jobs. It is that the reality we have been given does not align with the story we are being asked to tell.
I have seen a bank run ads about “compassion” while closing branches in neighborhoods that needed them most. I have worked with a food brand that wanted to be seen as “wholesome and family-oriented” while burying its ingredient list and creating products engineered to be addictive for children. In each case, the words were beautiful. The reality was not.
That disconnect is exhausting. It makes the work feel ineffective. It makes us feel fake. And if you have ever wondered why advertising is one of the least-respected professions, this is a big part of it. We live in the tension between what is real and what we are paid to say.
We are responsible for advising clients to find a message that is meaningful, valuable, and helpful. But there is always someone else ready to give them the story they want, even if it is off-brand, off-strategy, and ultimately ineffective. Sometimes there is even a jury ready to award that work.
When you are lucky enough to work on a nonprofit, a cause-led campaign, or a brand whose actions match its words, you feel the difference instantly. You are aligned. You are connected to the story. Even if it is funny or ridiculous, it is grounded in truth. You can believe in it, and so can your audience.
When it is not, it wears you down. Day after day of telling a story you know is not true chips away at your integrity. “That plastic bag was not made of recycled plastic. You just figured out how to optimize your own waste.” We do not just sell messages. We absorb them. And when they are fraudulent, we carry that fraud home with us.
A quick self-check for brands
Is our message based on a technicality or a truth?
Would our employees agree with the story we are telling?
If our audience spent a day with us, would they believe our ads?
What creatives can do when the story and the reality do not align
Ask for proof early
When a client presents a desired narrative, ask for concrete examples, customer stories, or data that support it. Frame it as wanting to make the work stronger, not as doubting the claim.Offer an adjacent truth
If the desired narrative feels false, look for a nearby truth that is both honest and aspirational. Suggest shifting the message to highlight what the brand is already doing well.Show the risk
Present examples of public backlash when brands made claims they could not back up. Position it as protecting the brand’s long-term trust rather than blocking the idea. (This is better executed internally rather than going rogue and presenting this to client without agency leadership buy-in.)Bring the audience into the room
Reframe your concern as an audience insight. Instead of “I do not think this is true,” try “Our audience will notice if this does not match their experience, and that could erode trust.”Find shared goals
Align with the client on what success looks like. If both sides agree it is about long-term loyalty, not just short-term impressions, it is easier to steer toward honest storytelling.
The truth is, words do not make a brand funny, smart, or compassionate. Behavior does. Until the behavior changes, all the clever lines and heart-tugging spots in the world will not make people believe it.
For brands, that is the challenge.
For agencies, that is the opportunity: get passionate about telling the actual truth, hold out for something real to say, and stop telling the stories of a world that does not exist. Give us something real to work with, and we will make the world believe it.