Episode 32: PR in Croatia (Part 2) - A conversation with PR student Filip Marinović

Hello, I'm Andrea Tabchar, a college public relations professor based in Toronto. My goal for my podcast is to interview PR practitioners with interesting stories to tell and I wanted to share those with my students. I've decided to call it PR Delivered. One of the best parts about teaching is the opportunity to work with young people on building their skills and preparing them for the workplace. So when I had the chance to do a teaching exchange through the EU's Erasmus program with a PR school in Croatia, I jumped at the chance. As a Croatian Canadian, I'm always eager to visit the country of my birth and this time I had the chance to learn about the Croatian PR students' experiences which I plan to share with my students and listeners back home in Canada. I'm currently at the Edward Bernays University College in Zagreb Croatia where I'm doing a series of guest lectures on a variety of PR topics. I'm enjoying meeting the students and the faculty and hope the student would be interested in joining me on PR Delivered. Philip Marinović stepped up to the plate. Philip is the president of Bernays Student Council and is currently in his fifth and last year of the communication program. Welcome Philip. Hello, thank you for having me. Why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about yourself. What's your background and how did you come to Bernays? Well, as you said, my name is Philip and this is my fifth and last year on the Edward Bernays University College or I would like to call it just Bernays. Well, I was born on the 5th of August 1996 and as you said, I'm second new graduate student at Bernays University College. I came here by realizing that Bernays gave me a unique opportunity to learn about PR public relations and that it's a perfect blend of theoretical and practical knowledge. I always like to talk a lot, think strategically and be on the move so I think those are the basic future, at least for me, for dealing with the PR business. My hobbies are student associations, hanging out with friends as usual, doing some sports when I have time for it and also listening music. I also love history and sometimes I like to play video games because they relax me after a long working day. You sound like a lot of my students. There you go. Edward Bernays University College opened in 2013 so next year will be a big anniversary. What do you as a student particularly enjoy at the school? Well, what I particularly enjoy or what I like the most is the fact that the professors really care about us and about our development. Bernays is distinguished by the expertise of our professors, our students and just the open approach of the professors towards the students is something that motivates us to continue learning and continue working. At Bernays students it's not just a number, they always try to introduce something innovative and Bernays get rings or parties are legendary. Oh, wow. We like that a lot. That's awesome. That is great. Bernays prides itself on the dual education approach, providing students, as you said, with both a theoretical framework and practical opportunities to network within the workplace. What has your experience been with the PR industry so far? Yes, that's absolutely right. Here at Bernays they strive to prepare students directly for the market of work, as I would say. Our professors, as I said, are leading experts in the fields of communication at PR. Further through various courses we conferred our theoretical knowledge through practical work on various case studies, projects, strategies and something like that. Bernays has more than 100 partners with whom we as students can do an internship and the internship is the main condition to pass the semester. Bernays is proud of the fact that a large percentage of students find job in their field during their study here. My experiences are more than positive. I went through a lot of branches of communication. I worked in the marketing for the leading radio company in Croatia. I also worked as community manager in our public relations agency for big clients such as Diveman, McDonald's, Sony and Gunman. We actually, I had the PS5 first, probably one of the first in Croatia when we did the strategies for Sony. I also worked in the political campaigns as well, political organizations and political structures and projects so much. I organized various events and here we have something in common because you said you were on the TEDx and I organized one of the TEDx in Zagreb. I think it was the second year of college here. I was also the spokesperson of the Creation Academic Union, which is a student association and all of that happened just because of Bernays and because of the system of theoretical knowledge and just their motivating us to do more and we like to say this is the best decision, it's our motto. Also, I would like to point out the networks, networking and the acquaintances and friendships which I got through those internships. I have met with a lot of business opportunities and I learned what it means to do PR. It's not just in the books, I was there, I was just tossed in the fire and I learned it. I simply adored the intensity of the work in PR and of that moving and not having time. And not having time, get used to that. You're also the president of the Bernays Student Council, which you mentioned, can you tell us more about your role? What do you do in that capacity? Yes, of course, so I'm actually the president in the second term and this is my last year, so I'm going to cry a bit later about that, but I'm pleased with the fact that there are a lot of young and talented people in our council, so I know I'm leaving it in the safe hands. I don't want to talk about my role here, I want to talk about our role here because if I'm a president I'm nothing without my colleagues and friends in the council, so our college student council is a elective representative body that protects the interests of students and it participates in work of our whole college and decision-making of marriage bodies. We take care of the students' standards and quality of the studies and through various office and committees within the working bodies, we organize various events, gatherings, trips, forums, conferences and so much more and also we pride on our humanitarian not concerts but projects we do on Christmas and a lot of our students actually come and they like to like to be here, they like to give something for someone who is not so lucky as they are. So of course without my colleagues in the council this would not have been possible and that's why I have the best deputy and secretary in my council to shout out to Leica and Lana, always behind the strongman is always a stronger woman so I'm not an exception so and I would like just to emphasize something else, I'm also the president of our creation student council of universities and colleges of applied science, so that's the coordinating body that's representing more than 35,000 students in Croatia and our main interest is the protection of student rights, the improvement of the student standard and we are now in a situation when the new law on higher education is being written in Croatia and so our current activities are all around that law. We had a lot of meetings with the ministers, we had various focus groups and researchers and I'm satisfied to say that we are very pleased with the current election of the law because they listened to us and they let us to participate in their work and this new law will further establish our place in the European higher education framework so we organized a regular session to Croatia and this is also a very good way for networking and we are we are gathering students and talking about the law and what it will bring just for us so it's a nice little story full of friendship but also full of work. Oh that's awesome, you're doing all the right things, I can tell you that that if you did all of that in Canada you would be doing very well in in your career so I expect the same will be true for you here, that's fantastic, you're very involved, I'm really impressed. What are some of your you know you've you've got so many interests, what would you say are some of your favorite courses here in the program? Well there are so many that it's simply not possible to separate just one or a couple of them but for me like maybe in the first year of study it's definitely communication, science, communication, science and the basic of public relations, that's the something like it's the core things you need to know to participate in PR business so even the subject the subject that was called if I'm not wrong of writing in a public and a public relation that helped me a lot and I just can't imagine my work without it so there I learned how to write press releases, media calls, articles, native articles and ads that's something that you can't learn on all of universities and I would say that's one of my favorite courses here. Also we had a lecture on the brands and its impact on the people but at the now at the graduate level however it's political communication because it's interested me the most so I adore it the most right now. Okay that's fantastic and you've got quite the wide variety of courses but you're also it seems like it's structured not too unlike what we do in Canada with the basic writing course in Tro to PR all that is it's very similar yeah because one doesn't exclude another yeah exactly everything everyone can find something for himself yes absolutely that's great um in Canada some issues of particular interest or concern whichever perspective you might have are the challenges fake news the challenges of fake news and the emerging role of artificial intelligence what are some issues in Croatian PR are you learning about in your in your classes any any issues that strike you that you're starting to hear more about I would most like to say the same maybe a little less focus on artificial intelligence but it's certainly a topic that will be discussed more and more in the future what we pay attention to through the lectures is certainly crisis communication and crisis management fake news is something that is present today more than ever especially after the after the president trump in the United States of America whose communication actually I analyzed in one of my works his communication on twitter and how the term of fake news helps him in his company so what I focus on college most is something like media literacy where you learn to the difference between fake news right news and sources because in Croatia we have the situation where you know that the one person will write differently about one topic and the other person will write on its own it's more like subjective than objective and it's not really good for our not only PR but the whole structures in right for civic society yeah so the focus we also have as the communication is currently moving to social networks we also have the focus on how to create quality content and adapt it to its audience I'm also very glad that in college we have one subject dedicated only to digital design and creation of audio visual content something like a podcast doing digital creating videos because we realized that everyone wants to deal with public relations needs to have at least basic knowledge in creating digital visuals and quality content for the for the media also I mean social media so that's kind of it great that's um interesting I mean we are thinking about the same things and concerned about the same things and a popular course that we offer is crisis communication and students enjoy hearing about you know first of all they can relate to the scenarios because they've heard of them unfolding and then you know what is the right approach to dealing with that and there's some models that they learned about and it's it's interesting we had a various case studies about it and actually when you know when design was hit by an earthquake and also some parts of creation we actually did a crisis management of the of the of the situation not only of the situation but of the structure that are that need to work with okay like the civic protection right right so the different departments yeah different departments and also with the pandemic of coronavirus or calling 19 with the communication of the medical institutions I see well very interesting so you're using very real case studies it was kind of emotionally hard yes but that's the that's just the that's the job you need to you need to know you need to know it and you need to do it yeah you're right um you sound like you've got lots of opportunities moving forward what do you hope to do when you graduate well I'm currently working in the public sector also also with the earthquakes and the protection of earthquakes but before that I was in a private sector and upon graduation of him many plans some of them are personal but more of them are professional well I plan to I maybe plan to enroll in a graduate studies in sociology or history okay because the history is one of my passions okay and I would love to work in the public relation in the political sector okay so as an advice a spokesperson campaign manager manager or something like that it's been something I've been interested in a very long time and I think that politics are a call not a job it's a call and I would like to contribute to society and my own country my homeland homeland with my work I would ask how I would also like to teach in the college because I just talked to early American elementary assistant professor here at the college and higher education is also one of the areas I would love to work here so that's kind of my goals now but we will see you've got lots on your plate that's amazing good for you I'd like to end my podcast by asking the guests their final thoughts for our listeners so just to remind you that my listeners are generally students graduates people in the industry for the most part in Toronto in Canada any final thoughts for them well I can say much because we are all students and we are all similar in other ways we maybe have a different views on politics you also said that on one of your lectures before yesterday if I remember right but I would like to possess work study and research find something that interests you and go for it go for it until you succeed meet people and networking is the key success in our field well what a lot of PR students and graduates forget is that although it's our job to do PR or public relations for others never forget about self-promotion be your best PR manager in the end of course I would like to invite them all in Croatia to Zagreb to Bernice to see how we do it here and to share opinions and to share views on the public relations that's great and let's hope that we can maybe make that happen that would be great better here yeah he would be very happy to do that and we and we have talked about that opportunity so let's see maybe we can um you know I really appreciate your time Philip thank you so much for answering the questions and all volunteering to to be on the podcast and and you know great job I really appreciate your time and your insight thank you for having me it's my honor really I'm so satisfied with this and I was so hyped the professor tell me about this oh my gosh that's a little bit nervous no you did a great job we did a fine job very good job thank you again to Philip Marinovic a student here at the Edward Bernice University College PR delivered can be heard on Spotify, Apple and Google podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts you can reach me @andreaTatchar on Twitter or LinkedIn