<b>The spokesperson who almost didn't exist</b>

<b>The spokesperson who almost didn't exist</b>

A challenger bank had a brilliant data story on Gen-Z saving habits and one problem: no credible human to attach it to. The CEO was media-shy. The marketing head sounded like marketing.

We nearly invented a title — "Head of Youth Finance Trends" — to give the quotes weight. We stopped ourselves. Journalists check, and a hollow title is a story that detonates later.

Instead we found the bank's actual 26-year-old data analyst who'd built the dataset and lived the demographic she was describing. Real expertise, real age, real voice. We spent two hours media-training her on three likely questions, not a script.

The pitch offered her as a genuine source: "The person who found this is in your target demographic and can explain it on the record." That authenticity was the hook.

A personal-finance reporter interviewed her directly: "Refreshing to talk to someone who actually is the audience, not a press office." The piece quoted her at length and linked the bank's research hub.

Result: 16 links across finance and lifestyle desks, plus two podcast bookings off the back of one real, findable human.

<b>Lesson:</b> A fabricated spokesperson is a delayed reputational bomb. Find the real person closest to the data — their authenticity is the credential no invented title can fake.