Interview with Shushan Harutyunyan, founder of the communications company AxelMondrian, for Banks.am

– If we compare how Armenia’s business environment (specifically large businesses) perceives the importance of PR and strategic communications today with, say, ten years ago, what picture do we see?

– I will try to single out three factors.

First, there are clear changes. I am glad that communications professionals are now involved in boards of directors at many companies. In addition, PR is now consulted before decisions of public significance are made, rather than afterwards, when a scandal erupts and crisis communication becomes necessary. This is an objective answer, presented to some extent from the perspective of professional self-interest.

The reality, however, is that the communications environment was already a systematised chaos ten years ago, and it remains so today. Awareness of the sector’s importance, or its increased popularity, has not produced any substantive impact.

The substantive change is that in recent years, large-scale lying or what might be called a “demarche of deception” has become precedential. This undermines the power of speech and public consensus. This is a direct and existential question for the survival of our profession. We, who were meant to create compelling and convincing narratives based on facts, find ourselves facing a professional crisis when, for example, we learn that a request for information has received a false response.

The third and most significant difference is that even large businesses have shifted to so-called “flexibility” and short-term planning. Large business has begun to play by the rules of small and medium-sized enterprises, replacing strategic communications with direct advertising. In the short term, this increases competitiveness. In the long term, large business falls outside the field of social engineering. It merely exploits opportunities and reacts to circumstances, rather than shaping an environment that ensures the continuity of its own business. In other words, large business extracts value from opportunities until markets collapse. When they do collapse, the problem is no longer its own, but that of the sector, the public, and the state. After all, who would want, for example, the banking, pension, or construction markets to face a major crisis? No one. Therefore, the burden of this short-sightedness is, in the literal sense of the word, a public burden.

The problems of small business belong to itself; those of large business belong to all of us. And this has a direct impact on the communications environment and on the precedents it creates.

– In this context, are there certain behavioural patterns (both positive and negative) that are characteristic of our businesses?

– I have already alluded to the dangerous ones; let me focus on the positive. All business precedents that involve moving from a single line of activity towards the creation of sectoral ecosystems are positive manifestations. It is important to understand that an “ecosystem” is not a trend, but a necessity for staying in the game by responding to the needs of the modern individual.

From a bank to a digital wallet, from telecoms to content creators, from a service centre to a shop-café — all of these are positive developments.

At present, markets are overloaded with offerings. In every category, there is an endless number of so-called problem-solving business models. No one needs those “damn problem-solvers” in the old format anymore. There is no room for pure salesmanship either; what is needed are thinkers. We need to think ahead: how we can genuinely improve people’s quality of life; how to create products and solutions that are not merely a redistribution of added value.
And how, within our professional field, we can truly speak to and understand people, rather than turning social media into a medieval marketplace, where everyone is engaged in petty trading at the level of “come this way”, “how much is it?”.

– I am asking this question also from a “narrowly professional” perspective. What can be done to make businesses more open to the media and more willing to engage with us? In the past, half-jokingly and half-seriously, we used to say that businesspeople avoided the media in order not to attract the attention of the tax authorities and other bodies. Today, such a “risk” certainly no longer exists, yet businesses largely remain closed to the media. I believe this is, above all, a cultural issue.

– I agree, this is a cultural issue. To some extent, it is also a manifestation of a lack of media literacy. We often tell our partners that what is presented on your own communication platforms — your business website, your Facebook pages — is only your version of the story. For your story to gain “legitimacy”, third-party platforms or so-called third-party endorsements are necessary, and this is where the power of the media comes into play. Not to mention how important media publications are from the perspective of search engines. This is the practical side of the issue.

On a substantive level, the problem is that, to this day, many businesses are not ready for open and transparent engagement with the media. They view the media merely as platforms for publishing press releases. For such a simplistic function, cooperation with the media comes at a very high cost in terms of marketing return on investment.

Let me also “throw a stone” at the media field by noting that businesses are often constrained by the media for a simple reason as well: to this day, many outlets cover businesses only in problematic contexts — legal issues, regulatory problems, shareholder-related matters, or issues of quality and service — while almost never covering other aspects of their activities. In other words, no one examines the media’s commitment to covering cases that are useful and important for the public. Yet this is where a fundamental balance is missing. For example, in cases of social responsibility or interesting, precedent-setting projects, when a business approaches a media outlet to invite coverage, the advertising department is immediately brought in. “Good news” is paid for; “bad news” is free. This is what businesses know about the media, and unquestionably, an effective dialogue is needed — one from which everyone will benefit, and therefore the public as well.

– Another issue is the lack of independent and competent experts. For example, when we prepare an article about the banking or telecommunications sector, it is almost impossible to find someone willing to express an opinion. We constantly remain “in between” the actual market players and the regulators. Is this also a problem for you, and what solutions do you see?

– Today, I do not know a single sector leader in Armenia who does not consider professional capacity-building and the lack of qualified specialists to be a problem. On the one hand, there is a shortage of narrowly specialised expertise across all sectors, compounded by the small-market factor. On the other hand, the field is crowded with dangerous know-it-alls or generalists who feel able to comment on everything — from capital markets to the psychology of relationships. As an employer, I can say that this is a painful issue.

– Please present examples of successful cooperation from Armenia’s private and public sectors that you consider particularly noteworthy.

– What I am about to say may sound pathetical, but at AxelMondrian we believe in our cases and are emotionally connected to each and every one of them. The logic is simple: if you are presenting a strong case, you are the first to believe in it yourself; you live it as if it were under your skin. If it is a bad case, why take it on at all? I like to say to our partners: give me that trust and conviction — I will find the method to convey it to the public.

If I were to single something out, I would have to speak not as a professional, but as an Armenian. I consider particularly important all those projects of ours that create Armenian-language content, rooted in Armenian reality, yet competitive and contemporary by international standards.

For example, recently, for the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, which has initiated the reconstruction of the Spandaryan Canal in Syunik, we developed the “Homeland and Eternity” campaign, which also consists of three short films. In the campaign, we spoke about the vitality of the homeland through a new-generation model, conducting systematic research into aesthetics and every single detail. The gusans’ song “Akh im hayrenikis jure” was reinterpreted in a new way by Yellow Heart — Lili — one of the new-generation artists, while the texts were read by actors Narine Grigoryan, Artashes Mkhitaryan and Babken Chobanyan, all of whom are popular among young audiences. I will not even mention how difficult it was, for example, to take a 60-member film crew up into the mountains in freezing weather in UAZ vehicles, to manage lambs, or to film both in water and on land. But no one complained, and I hope that through the frame we managed to convey that pure love — the white and the blue — that is the homeland: that which is worth fighting for, preserving and keeping alive. Judging by the tens of millions of views and people’s reactions, I hope — and believe — that we managed to pass on that love, and that the fundraising will indeed succeed, helping Spandaryan and Syunik.

Another example is the campaign developed for “Chinar”, a restaurant of Armenian cuisine, entitled “Redefining Armenian Cuisine”. In popular imagery, a restaurant serving Armenian cuisine is often portrayed as loud, everyday and associated with simplistic food. We disagree with this positioning, and “Chinar” not only presents exceptional Armenian dishes in a new interpretation, but our campaign was also a visual provocation — combining imagery, characters and what they were tasting: for example, eating panrkhash with onions while wearing an evening gown, or cracking walnuts in a restaurant while dressed in a suit. The songs were specially selected from folk heritage — “Margeri orore”, “Yerevanum bagh em arel”, “Yars kertsa sibekhi”, “The Song of Shatakh’s Sand” — all intended to ignite imagination and to allow people to see and feel the richness and nobility of Armenian cuisine and song.

– No one likes to talk about failures, but perhaps you could break the tradition. Can you present cases (without naming clients) where it seemed that cooperation would succeed, yet the opposite happened?

– We have had two cases in which we initiated the unilateral termination of a contract. Two out of a hundred. In both cases, the reason was disrespectful behaviour towards a company employee or towards professional work itself.
When crude remarks of the “whoever pays the piper calls the tune” variety are voiced, in such situations it is necessary to end the meeting on the spot and ask some of Armenia’s well-known and much-admired business figures to leave the office. Apparently, any issue can be discussed — except bargaining over respect and dignity.

– Around one third of your clients are not based in Armenia — they come from EU countries, the MENA region and the CIS. I understand that the world has become global, but I have always believed that in communications, if not mandatory, it is at least desirable to be in the “same space” as the client, in order to understand and take into account various nuances. How do you address the component of local experience?

– “Local experience”, in essence, means command of the language and an understanding of local customs, because culture, in the broad sense — or at least as Émile Durkheim formulates it — is the expression of local habits. Let us contrast Durkheim with Marc Augé’s concept of the “non-place”, which, in a single word, is the passport of the global world. A non-place is a chain coffeeshops, a hotel, an airport terminal — where, even without knowing the language or being there for the first time, you are nonetheless guaranteed an identical experience; you know how to use the space and how to navigate it. This is roughly what protests were about in the 2000s, under slogans such as “against globalisation”, which later quietly faded away.

What I want to state here is that, unfortunately or fortunately, modern business is a “non-place”. The subject of business — people like me, who implement projects in different countries — speaks a single business language: Western education, Oxford’s reputation management frameworks, the same metrics for assessing business effectiveness, and so on. And the object of business — people, consumers — has lost its cultural specificity. Culture has remained in places that exist in a social vacuum, without internet access.

Thus, “local particularities” have died as a category, and public opinion and market research are, in a phenomenal way, beginning to produce identical findings about consumerism in different countries. Of course, no one has abolished the role of social capital and personal connections in global business. But that is a completely different side of the question.

– Since you also work in other markets, I assume you have noticed the main differences between the behaviour of our businesses and “theirs”.

– Armenians, and Armenian business, are carriers of an "verbal culture". You may recall the sign on a minibus that reads “Zeytun–Station”, yet people still open the door and ask the driver, “Master, are you going to the Station?” In Armenia, businesses prefer face-to-face meetings, enjoy endless conversations, do not read written files, and consider it important that what is written is also presented verbally. This is the fundamental difference. Incidentally, the same applies to Middle Eastern countries. And, of course, the most destructive manifestation of Armenian oral culture is managing business processes through voice messages, conveying figures and circumstances in that way. Whereas many issues would be resolved if people simply opened a computer and clearly formulated the problem in a single email. A large part of the work would already be done.

– AI is certainly the most frequently mentioned topic of the year. On the one hand, there is an opinion that creative industries like yours and ours are not yet under serious threat, as machines can process vast amounts of “raw material” and propose solutions, but cannot truly create. There is also another view: if a company does not need to solve highly complex or crisis-related communications issues, it can comfortably rely on AI-generated solutions and avoid engaging specialists. What is your view?

– If AI is developing according to the scenario described by Geoffrey Hinton, who won the Nobel Prize in machine learning last year, then we should enjoy life now — because this may be the end (smiles — ed.).

For now, generative AI helps replace many mechanical functions in our field as well. There is no need to “spit against the wind”: editing, data checks and many functions can be easily integrated — for a competent professional, it is a convenient tool. For a fool and those around him, it is a real headache, because from a creative standpoint, AI is still engaged in plagiarism, harvesting ideas, texts and content. As a result, every file you receive has to be double-checked, so that you do not inadvertently become a publisher of plagiarism, with all the legal consequences that entails. At AxelMondrian, we already have a policy on the use of AI and its limitations, and it is public.

Incidentally, we have already had a case where we were approached for crisis communications precisely because of a problem caused by AI-driven plagiarism. An importing company in Armenia had outsourced the management of the social media pages of a well-known brand it represents to a group of freelancers. The latter published well-crafted texts generated by AI, as many do. This continued until one day the brand’s competitor sued the brand itself for unfair competition and plagiarism.

On the eve of this, I had been invited to give a public lecture, and we discussed this topic at length. I tried to convey to students that AI is not your enemy — there is no need to fear it. Your enemy is mediocrity.

– Should communication shape taste and set precedents, or should it solve concrete problems, such as sales or market growth? And is it possible to combine the two?

– David Perell wrote a brilliant essay, The Microwave Economy, in which he argues that people’s lives have improved because, in five minutes, you can heat up and enjoy even the most complex restaurant dish, without spending much money or time. And that is true. Today, all resources and energy are concentrated on making the world “cheaper” rather than more “functional”, or more “unique” rather than more “meaningful”.

Under the banner of progress, art, poetry and rhythm are treated as archaisms. Beauty is considered irrational, not measurable. Businesses want to speak in numbers. “It makes no difference to me whether you show dog excrement on screen or something else — what matters is that there are sales,” one well-known businessman once told me while formulating his marketing problem. I considered that he was entitled to his desired outcome, but that it was our task, in solving the problem as he defined it, to ensure that “excrement” did not end up being presented as a campaign. It is our professional duty to think about the consequences of a frame or a story, to dignify people, to inspire and to create meaning.

Business will never say: let’s do something aesthetic, enjoy ourselves, and end our activity there. Short-sighted businesses want sales; strategically minded businesses want to create viable ideas, stories and ideals to ensure business continuity. At AxelMondrian, we try to be patient and to walk the road together with those businesses that are playing not to score a single goal, but to win the championship again and again.

– As the year is coming to an end, I cannot avoid the traditional question: how are you “closing the year”? What do you consider the main achievements of 2025, and what plans are outlined for 2026?

– We almost always say: “this year was the hardest”. Then the next year comes along, and at the end of it we say again that that year was the hardest. The greatest achievement of 2025 was that we survived (laughs — ed.). We implemented 21 complex projects in one year. We need rest — and for 2026, health. We have three pro bono projects planned for 2026. I pray to the Lord for strength and perseverance to bring them to life.

Ara Tadevosyan talked to Shushan Harutyunyan