At the jubilee regional conference “DIGITAL 2024”, Vera Vuković, Marketing Manager at British Motors and “PR Manager of the Year” award winner, stood out among the laureates. Her work on improving communications and building the company’s image is recognized as an example of professionalism and dedication. In the conversation that follows, Vera shares her insights on present day challenges and the beauty of this profession
NP: Vera, congratulations on winning the regional award “PR Manager of the Year”! How do you feel about this prestigious recognition, what does it mean for you personally and for your company?
Thank you! Awards are nice, especially when they surprise and come at a specific business moment as confirmation of the quality of your work. For me, this award is significant because I received it practically from the secondary field of my work, but an area that I know very well from two different perspectives -as a journalist, i.e. the media and as a PR officer, i.e. from a company perspective. As someone who spent a decade working in the media, and then another decade in marketing and PR, I am truly happy about this award, especially as it comes from a jury panel consisting of top professionals in those fields.
I am sure that the company that employs me is pleased to have the best PR manager in the region. When someone from outside a company recognizes the quality of work of an employee in the company, surely that company has gained a lot from that person’s work. Certainly, my success would not have been possible without the teamwork of great individuals employed at British Motors and OMR Group, and without the support and trust of the management.
NP: At the awards ceremony, you emphasized the importance of teamwork and thanked your colleagues from British Motors and OMR Group. What makes your team so special?
I hope my employer won’t read this, but I love marketing and PR, communications in general, so much that I would probably do this job even without pay. 🙂
Teamwork in the automotive industry means working with a large number of different people, mostly men, top professionals in their field. Our advantage over the competition lies in our comprehensive offer – clients can get everything they need in one place: from purchasing a new car and replacing the old one, through service and buying tires, to offers for insurance and financing, technical inspection or vehicle registration. So, we offer a range of services and if everyone does a good job in their area of responsibility, it’s up to the marketing team to communicate that to the clients. When you have such a competitive product on the market and colleagues who do not make mistakes in their work, then communication of such a service is a real pleasure.
NP: Communication in the era of digital transformation is a significant undertaking. What are the biggest challenges you face in your daily work and how do you overcome them?
There is a well-known thought: “Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.” And I would add – many business partnerships are broken, many families are torn apart, many close friendships ended, business reputations destroyed… Communication is the most underestimated area and hardly anyone sees its importance in everyday life, outside of work.
Current speed of information flow reduces the quality of communication, and the amount of information reduces the ability to absorb the message. Let’s say, in the first half hour of your morning, just by the time you get to work, you’ve passed by dozens, maybe even hundreds of billboards, hoardings, banners, illuminated advertisements, you’ve received several notifications on social networks, two or three text messages, a dozen emails, someone has already called you, and you carry two phones… In that deluge of messages from all sides, the quality has been lost, the ranking of the importance of the messages has been lost, and along with all that, a terrible language deformation is happening because of all the abbreviations, symbols, stickers, avatars, with not even basic grammar rules, cases, capital letters being applied… I try not to allow to be affected by this trend either privately or professionally. In business, I never accept long or vague messages, I look for and offer conciseness in communication, clarity. Conciseness combined with good creative aspect and always with some surprise factor makes for a good marketing or PR message.
NP: How do you balance branding strategy with day-to-day operational tasks?
Strategic branding consists of a series of small steps that should be taken every day. Maintaining a balance is not difficult if the mission and vision of the brand are clearly defined, and the strategy is properly adopted. Then the daily operation becomes one step closer to achieving the goal. However, the trouble arises in the frequent changes in the direction of communication that I recognize in individual brands and companies. We are witnessing the trend of large labour turnover in companies, and it is bad when, for example, frequent personnel changes in a team change the directions of communication and the way of positioning the brand. Serious companies solve this by adopting a strong strategy, five-year or ten-year strategy, and then deviations are possible only if the objective market circumstances require. Brands like Jaguar and Land Rover that we represent have a clear strategy that does not allow diversions.
NP: What was the key moment in your career that shaped you into the marketing expert you are today?
I always knew that I would not pursue ‘’a rough profession’’, that I would not be a doctor or an engineer, I wanted a softer, more refined profession for myself and I found it in communications. After journalism and PR, marketing came as a logical consequence. The key moment in my career was, now long ago, my decision to leave journalism, which unfortunately ceased to exist in the proper way in those years, and the sentence of my much older colleague before retirement, “Journalism is the most beautiful profession in the world when you leave it on time”.
It is said that working with people is very difficult, but I think that working “with words” is even more difficult. However, once you master this skill and acquire good communication skills, you can do any other job, because communication is the foundation of almost any business. I was lucky enough to get involved in all the abundance of the journalist profession and learn a lot at a very young age, but also to feel the strength and consequences of every publicly spoken word. Let’s just remember Branko Miljković and his famous sentence “I was killed by a word too strong.” More dangerous than strong words is only weak, fluctuating, vague, indistinct, docile communication in which one speaks too much or stays silent too much.
NP: Given that you are responsible for communication with the media, how do you see the role of PR in today’s world when information is available almost in real time?
Information is available, but is it accurate, precise, truthful, useful? The role of PR is to direct the flow of information to the audience, but information that is useful for the company that markets it and useful for the one who consumes it. It is precisely this availability of information in real time that requires the engagement of professionals who will market it in a timely and quality manner, respond to all challenges, recognize potential crisis situations, direct the ‘spotlights’ to what is favourable for you, and cast the shadow on something that you would rather keep disclosed.
A PR manager must know how to shape information that will go viral and find its way into media releases, as well as how to create a photo that will be shared and that everyone will be happy to post. If you send the same release to all the media, accompanied by a photo of your company building or your CEO, ask yourself – why would anyone publish it? Sorry, but you’re obsolete. That’s how things were done more than twenty years ago. The media is not a company service for making announcements and PR managers must understand that and learn how to create interesting information, creative, competitive, attractive, that everyone will want to publish. That is the task of PR.
NP: What current marketing trends inspire you the most and how do you apply them in your business?
At one point, not so long ago, after the time of COVID, it seemed that the event industry was slowly going into oblivion, which deeply saddened me. However, after a temporary calm, companies and brands realized that presentations in the traditional form of gatherings can continue to live, with certain modifications, of course. These modifications are what I am most interested in at the moment, and we are talking about partner “cross selling” activations. I strongly believe that these partner activations are the future of modern marketing and I am inspired by creating quality collaborations that will give results in cross selling.
NP: Why not create joint activations for luxury car clients and, for example, representatives of the beauty or fashion industry?
These are the same people — everyone who likes luxury cars and can afford them surely also enjoys good skin care, expensive watches, exclusive restaurants, fashion… These areas provide numerous opportunities for cooperation between companies that can “exchange” clients, to put it that way. With these collaborations, all clients get added value from a brand they trust, without using classic loyalty cards that offer discounts, which are already a product of the last century, where they should stay.
NP: What part of your job gives you the most satisfaction and would you tell us what your next big dream project would be?
Strategic planning in communications represents my path and plan for the future. Consulting in the field of brand or company positioning in terms of communication, crisis communications, lobbying industry are areas of my interest and something that I will certainly do in the future.
It’s time for younger colleagues, as there are some great ones, to handle operations. We are talking about generations that have grown up in the digital age and intuitively use all the changing trends.
And my path is clear and truthful. Just as any communication should be.
