10 Tips How to Communicate in the CEE Region

As our goal is to deliver ‘leadability’ for international organisations, and the market momentum that goes with it, in the Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) region, we have prepared a short guide on factors to take into account if you want to build lasting relationships with the media for your organisation or brand.

CEE is a diverse mix of countries stretching East from Germany and Austria and South from the Nordic countries. Each country has its own language, history and culture. It is essential to tailor your actions to the requirements of the country, but we have identified some themes that apply to more than one. We hope you find the tips helpful.

1. Make Your First Contact Personal

It’s essential to make your first contact with journalists in the region a direct personal outreach. Relying on newswires will not work. 

It therefore makes sense to use local agencies led by local managers and owners who have personal relationships with your target media, influencers and opinion leaders. You can either go market by market or you can search for an individual hub agency that will manage the other agencies, or to create regional agency coverage within The Worldcom PR Group. 

Local agencies not only have a better grasp of the local media and communication landscape, but also know all the DOs and DON'Ts for any type of client or brand given to promote.

2. Don’t Default to English

Each country in the CEE region has its own native language and it is essential to communicate in that language when addressing journalists – certainly on the first occasion. If the first email is in English, it will probably not be opened.

We strongly recommend you use a translator for the first contact and to create a relationship with the journalists. When you get a response, it may be possible to send additional content in English.

3. Plan Budget According to Sub-region Levels

The fee budget required varies by country. We have provided a guide below.

If, for example, you have a budget of 3 000 EUR for a scope of work in Germany, you will need the following average budget in each country for the same scope of work:

4. Be Realistic About Your Media Coverage Expectations

Two countries offer well developed media relations markets similar to Western Europe – the Czech Republic and Poland. The other countries in the Region offer a lower number of traditional print media and business magazines (less than ten). The reason for this is that the media are concentrated under only a few media houses causing complication in the case of organic media coverage. Therefore, the other countries mainly use online media and are more active in blog posts, podcasts and social media.

5. Create Impetus by Attending Events

If you want to build business and brand momentum in the CEE Region, one of the ways that works is to attend appropriate conferences and shows. Most of the big events are pan-European: IFA in Berlin, World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Web Summit in Germany, Krynica Congress, Geneva International Motor Show, and many others.

In general, we do not recommend attending local conferences, but instead to search for the events in Western Europe. You can be sure that Eastern European buyers will be there.

6. Early Adopters

For those who are not familiar with the term, early adopters refers to countries that adopt new innovations in any field faster than others. The Baltic countries are known as early adopters that have a developed government and their level of development is comparable to Northern countries. For instance, Romanians are early adopters. On the other side, Czechs are more conservative in general, yet early adopters when it comes to startups. This is one of all specifics that need to be reflected also in the way you communicate within each state.

7. Plan for Cultural Differences

The CEE Region can be split into different cultural types when it comes to an approach to life and work. Polish, Slovak and Hungarian people are culturally closer and more conservative that the Czechs, who are close to Western culture. The Baltic states tend to have similarities with the Nordic countries.

It is not always possible to effectively adapt global strategy on the local level. Therefore, it is crucial to have a local partner who knows the landscape, to team up with them and build a real mechanism to create a local bond and connection.

8. Don’t Be Late

One common attitude across the Region is a preference for punctuality. Throughout the region punctuality is very important and regarded as a sign of reliability. While 15 minutes grace will be offered, arriving late is definitely frowned upon.

9. Get an Accurate View About Perceived Prejudices in the Region

Although Eastern Europeans have a reputation for being xenophobic and having low acceptance levels for the LGBT community, refugees and gender equality, the reality is very different.

There are many women in leadership positions in companies and women are active in politics. LGBT communities are generally respected with the possible exceptions of Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Hungary.

Issues concerning refugees have become more of a political problem vs. public; the public largely has no problem with refugees.

10. Be Prepared for Very Different Behaviour from Journalists in Different Countries 

Journalist behaviour varies across the Region and can be very different from the respectful style adopted by most US journalists. For example, at a press conference Polish journalists will ask multiple questions and could appear pushy. Czech journalists on the other hand will stay silent and may appear disinterested. The opposite is usually the case as they prefer to listen during the press conference and ask questions later on.

10 Tips in Praxes – case study of Eurowag

Our team in PRAM Consulting has years of experience managing communication in the CEE Region on the basis of a hub agency that manages all activities within the region. The hub functions on the basis that PRAM is your main point of contact in the Czech Republic and uses its partner agencies under the global network The Worldcom PR Group, to ensure communication and outputs on local basis.

W.A.G. Payment solutions also known as Eurowag, the fastest growing provider of integrated mobility in Europe reached out to us to ensure whole communication service in the Czech Republic and in the CEE region, namely in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Our hub agency managed to control synchronized communication of five other PR agencies.

Eurowag is a Czech company that has gradually expanded its services from the provision of fuel cards and fleet operations to the areas of telematics, e-mobility and financial technologies. Our biggest challenge was to remove Eurowag's label as a pure freight transport company and to profile the company in the eyes of potential clients and the public as a strong player in the FinTech and green mobility field.

At the time of establishing the cooperation, Eurowag was already communicating in the Czech Republic. However, it lacked a unified framework and no long-term strategy had been built. We knew that without quality B2C content targeted at the professional media and the public, it would not work. We created an annual communication pipeline with key topics mainly related to green mobility, telematics and FinTech. Together with a team of copywriters, we regularly created articles aimed at both expert audiences and the wider public. The cooperation among agencies and their capability to adapt any topic to their market needs was the key to get attraction of journalists and bring them only relevant content to publish.

In this way, we helped Eurowag to establish its position as a "thought leader". Alongside this, we put together a media campaign in key business and industry media to increase overall brand awareness.

Eurowag is a perfect example of combining similar topics together allowing local agencies to localize the content. Yet, still being under one managing agency. The client benefits from being able to communicate within the whole region while still being in touch with local agency that is supervising the others.

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Patrik Schober is Managing Partner at PRAM Consulting in the Czech Republic.

This post is part of a thought-leadership series from The Worldcom Public Relations Group featuring media relations best practices and local market insights. 

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