Three things
we cannot do.

Because those three things are prohibited in all circumstances rather than weighed case by case, so there is genuinely nothing to negotiate. Undisclosed paid editorial, posing as a consumer, and writing or commissioning reviews are on the list of practices treated as unfair in every case, which means no one needs to prove a consumer was misled. Knowing that in the first meeting saves a client from asking in the third.

It is on the blacklist, which is the serious end. Submitting false reviews or commissioning someone else to submit them, misrepresenting reviews or social endorsements, and claiming reviews come from actual purchasers without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to verify it are all prohibited outright. So we do not write them, buy them, incentivise them or quietly filter out the bad ones. If a client runs a review function, we advise on how to run it consistently with those rules.

No, and neither can anyone else. The decision to publish, and the tone of what gets published, belong to the editor. Any arrangement that guarantees publication is paid placement, which is a legitimate product, and it has to be disclosed as paid inside the content. Our fees are never contingent on coverage appearing, because a fee that depends on a placement creates an interest in getting it at any cost.

It is not. The commercial nature of a communication has to be identifiable by the person receiving it, and a disclosure buried elsewhere or implied by context does not satisfy that. If there is a commercial relationship, it is apparent in the publication itself. In practice the labelled campaigns perform about as well, because audiences work it out regardless and resent being handled.

We can prepare one with you, and we would rather do that before anything happens. But we are not a law practice, we are not enrolled at any bar and we give no legal advice. A statement answering an allegation can carry legal consequences in defamation, in contract, in disclosure obligations or in employment, so where it does, your own lawyer reads it first and we work alongside them. A response that is rhetorically strong and legally reckless is not a service.

Treat them as personal data, which is what they are. There has to be a lawful basis for holding them and information duties owed to the people on them. Those lists are not traded, not shared between clients, and not kept because they might be useful one day. Embargoes get the same treatment: a binding undertaking rather than a courtesy to be broken for a better slot.