By Adetokunbo Modupe

Communication professionals are trained to find opportunities to tell stories.

But what happens when you work in an industry where an otherwise brilliant communication idea could become a regulatory problem?

That is the peculiar challenge of communicating in highly regulated industries.

Over more than three decades in public relations, I have had the opportunity to work with clients across several regulated sectors. These include pharmaceuticals, where I worked with Pfizer; tobacco, where I worked with British American Tobacco (BAT); and, today, Japan Tobacco International (JTI).

These experiences have taught me something important: in a highly regulated industry, the best communication idea is not necessarily the most creative one. It is the most creative idea that can survive regulatory scrutiny.

Pfizer, BAT and JTI have all exposed me to organisations where regulation is taken seriously. But my experience with JTI has reinforced another dimension of compliance that deserves greater attention: self-regulation as corporate culture.

WHEN GOOD INTENTIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH

The tobacco industry offers one of the clearest examples of this challenge.

Nigeria operates an extensive tobacco-control framework that restricts tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. This means activities that might be considered routine corporate communication in another industry face considerably greater scrutiny in tobacco.

A well-intentioned corporate initiative can potentially raise questions.

A sustainability intervention may need to be examined beyond its social value.

A stakeholder engagement programme may have to be considered beyond its immediate purpose.

Even communication around a legitimate corporate activity requires understanding where corporate communication ends and where product or brand promotion begins.

The communication professional therefore has to think beyond intention.

What will the regulator see?

How will an advocacy group interpret it?

Could a legitimate corporate initiative inadvertently create promotional value?

Those questions can be uncomfortable for communicators whose instinct is naturally to maximise visibility. But in highly regulated industries, restraint can sometimes be as important as reach.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMPLIANCE AND SELF-REGULATION

Every responsible company should comply with the law. That is the minimum expectation, not an extraordinary achievement.

Self-regulation goes further.

It means creating internal boundaries that may sometimes be stricter than what appears immediately permissible.

It means asking not only:

Can we do this?

But:

Should we do this?

And sometimes:

Even if we can do it, is it worth the regulatory or reputational ambiguity?

This is where my experience with JTI has been particularly instructive.

The company’s publicly stated global marketing principles emphasise adult-only marketing, accurate communication and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. It also says internal processes, controls, and risk-based audits support compliance with those principles.

But policies are only one part of corporate governance. The more interesting test is how an organisation behaves when compliance potentially conflicts with an opportunity.

In my professional interactions with JTI Nigeria, I have seen occasions where an attractive communication opportunity has been subjected to rigorous internal questioning precisely because of the possibility of regulatory misinterpretation.

That willingness to interrogate itself is significant.

Because the real test of compliance is not when following the rules is convenient. It is when compliance has a cost.

SOMETIMES THE BEST COMMUNICATION DECISION IS NOT TO COMMUNICATE

This may sound contradictory coming from a PR practitioner.

Our business is communication. Clients engage us to create visibility, build reputation, influence conversations and strengthen stakeholder relationships.

Yet experience has taught me that professional communication is not simply about generating publicity.

Sometimes our responsibility is to advise a client not to communicate.

Sometimes it is to abandon an idea we personally consider brilliant.

Sometimes it is to reduce branding, remove visibility or completely redesign an initiative because what is acceptable from a communication perspective may create unnecessary questions from a regulatory one.

That is not weak communication.

It is strategic communication.

And it requires an unusual relationship between the communication function, legal advisers, regulatory affairs, sustainability teams and senior management.

BUILDING REGULATORY INTELLIGENCE

I believe organisations operating in regulated industries need to move beyond regulatory compliance towards what I call regulatory intelligence.

Compliance asks: What does the regulation say?

Regulatory intelligence asks: What does it mean for everything we are about to do?

That difference is fundamental.

It means bringing regulatory thinking into communication planning from the start, not at the end.

It means communication professionals understand regulation well enough to anticipate potential problems before presenting ideas.

It means legal and regulatory teams understanding communication sufficiently to distinguish legitimate corporate storytelling from unnecessary promotional risk.

It also means management creating an environment where saying no to an opportunity isn’t considered a failure when saying yes could compromise corporate standards.

Before approving any major communication initiative in a highly regulated industry, I believe three questions should be compulsory:

Is it legal?

Is it responsible?

Could it reasonably be interpreted differently from what we intend?

The third question matters more than ever because reputation is not determined by intention alone.

It is also determined by interpretation.

THE REPUTATION VALUE OF RESTRAINT

There is a broader lesson here beyond tobacco.

Pharmaceuticals, banking, alcoholic beverages, telecommunications, energy, fintech and many other industries increasingly operate under complex regulatory and stakeholder scrutiny.

For communicators working in these sectors, creativity without regulatory understanding can become a liability.

The future communication professional therefore needs more than storytelling skills. We must understand policy, regulation, stakeholder expectations, corporate governance and reputational risk.

My experiences working with Pfizer, BAT and now JTI have reinforced my respect for organisations that recognise the importance of regulatory compliance.

But what stands out to me about the JTI experience is the emphasis I have observed on self-regulation—the willingness to establish internal guardrails and interrogate opportunities even where doing so may appear commercially inconvenient. Once it is close to the borderline of self-regulation, the idea however productive is not wellcomed.

That is an important distinction.

Because organisations should not aspire merely to avoid violating regulations.

They should build cultures in which crossing the boundary becomes institutionally unacceptable.

For communication professionals, the lesson may be even simpler.

Our job is not always to ask:

“How much visibility can we get from this?”

Sometimes the more important question is:

“Should we be communicating this at all?”

That may be one of the greatest paradoxes of our profession.

In a highly regulated industry, knowing when not to communicate can be just as valuable as knowing how to communicate.

Regulation tells an organisation where the boundary is. Self-regulation reveals how seriously it respects that boundary.