
As a young EU member state, the state of play of Estonia’s PR profession is also somewhat young. During soviet times there was no place for two-way communication, solely ideology-driven propaganda. After the planned economy was replaced by market economics, there was a huge need for marketing. Empty shelves in department stores were filled with goods one could only dream about. Every company had a marketing department and contract with an advertising agency. The story goes that my business card was the first with the job title ‘PR manager’ written on it in Estonia back in 1989. Marketing was like a Holy Grail then. In Northern Europe’s second oldest university, Tartu University, we launched a PR degree and Masters levels in the media and communication department in 1996. In the same year the Estonian PR Association was established. Public awareness of marketing and PR used to be described as: marketing is about selling, practised by wise guys to bring in money, PR is about lying or image-making, practised by beautiful blonde girls with long legs and it wastes money.