At META Advisory, we work every day to ensure our clients receive the best possible advice and support – and behind that is always our people. Over the coming months, we’ll introduce our consultants more closely: what they do, what they’ve done, and how they think.
Teele Tammeorg
You worked in journalism for six years and have spent the past ten years in communications. What has been the biggest change in the media landscape during that time? What no longer works, even though it did in journalism two years ago or vice versa?
I started out as a young reporter at Eesti Päevaleht in the summer of 2008. In some ways, it was still the heyday of print journalism: newspapers still published substantial weekend editions. At the same time, more experienced colleagues were having to accept unprecedented pay cuts, as we were in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis. Back then, we talked about the recession constantly – it was the word on everyone’s lips. It is funny how completely that term has since faded from everyday use. People worried about the future of journalism then, as they had before and naturally still do today. Technically, a great deal has changed: far fewer print newspapers are published now, and most of us follow the news on our phones. I am not sure this development should be mourned too deeply. To be honest, not every story was worthy of paper and ink even then. Today, we are dealing with “AI slop”, but we also used to write plenty of poor-quality – and, in hindsight, rather absurd – stories ourselves. Producing content simply for the sake of producing more content has always been a problem. This is the pointless cycle we should try to break: we should favour quality and meaningful experiences over volume. That is hardly a new idea – it has been discussed for years, but it remains relevant.
One clear change over the past decade is the sheer number of communications channels and the even fiercer competition for attention. Each channel has its own logic, distinct audiences, and fairly clear rules for what kind of content works and what success looks like. Many things compete for people’s attention, and they are not limited to media outlets in the traditional sense. A shopping app can send us just as many updates as a news organisation, if we have allowed it to.
You can describe these developments in a very bleak way, predicting that no one will be able to focus anymore, manage their own lives, or maintain social cohesion and mutual understanding. But there is also a more optimistic view. Human beings are naturally curious: we experiment, explore and push boundaries. Socially, every strong movement in one direction tends to be followed by a correction in the other. If we grow tired of AI slop and pushy shopping platforms, we may begin to avoid them and leave them behind. We may remember what genuinely brings us joy and what we actually want to spend our time on. Both time and attention are limited, exhaustible resources.
Journalism tends to attract people who are curious, creative and motivated to make the world better. Storytelling and making sense of the world around us are still at the core of journalism. We need to get better at distinguishing what matters from what does not. In communications, we should stop chasing volume and focus on achieving impact instead. How? By identifying what matters, putting real effort into it, and avoiding both AI-generated and human-made slop. Unlike in the past, one of the key risks today is fatigue: there is simply too much content, and too much of it feels repetitive. In the attention economy, we need to work more carefully and sustainably, rather than wasting resources without achieving results.
“Producing content simply for the sake of producing more content has always been a problem. This is the pointless cycle we should try to break: we should favour quality and meaningful experiences over volume.”
What is your greatest strength? If someone looks at Meta Advisory today and thinks “I need a professional’s help with this one particular area,” what would be the area in which you are completely in your element?
I believe that in communications, it is important to be curious, to notice things, and to make observations about life and society. The next step is to connect those observations with knowledge and to work iteratively. It is also important to keep your skills sharp by continuing to write, draft, develop ideas and discuss them – not simply by becoming better at writing prompts. I see these as my strengths, and I work continuously to develop them further. One practical area in which I have supported dozens of clients is preparing spokespeople for public appearances and media interviews.
Looking ahead: there is a lot of speculation about whether Gen Z and younger generations will consume traditional media at all in the future. What do you think? If the role of a communications agency today is largely based on media relations, what will become of PR agencies in the future?
I am not sure it is useful anymore to draw a sharp distinction between “traditional” media and everything else. What matters more is having the basic skills to read and understand all kinds of text, visual content and iconography. This includes source criticism – and, presumably, prompting skills as well. Prompting can quite reasonably be understood as the ability to formulate research questions and delegate tasks thoroughly.
If we are talking about high-quality news media and journalism, it can function and thrive across different platforms. In the current attention economy, that is certainly not easy. But journalism has never been especially profitable. It is worth remembering that the earliest newspapers, centuries ago, were primarily paid advertisements and notices; texts later emerged to fill the gaps, and those texts eventually came to be seen as essential to the functioning of democracy.
Public and community debate can take place on social media too – why not? At times, it resembles the ancient Greek agora, where people show up in public under their own names and faces. What concerns me is the consumerist, overly individualistic content that thrives on social media, as well as the endless stream of mindless content that does nothing to make people better informed, wiser or more fulfilled.
I would not want to place the entire burden on schools, as we often do, but I believe Estonian schools do a very good job of broadening children’s and young people’s horizons and diversifying their media choices. I think many parents consider these issues too, and hopefully discuss them with their children. In my view, Estonians cannot really be accused of lacking traditions.
In communications, we should certainly avoid becoming too medium-specific. The point is to support a company, institution or organisation in its role in society more broadly. At different times, this may mean using different media and channels skilfully. It may mean organising events, working in government relations, or creating all kinds of tailored solutions – things that should no longer seem particularly “special” to us. Perhaps every new development is, in some sense, a forgotten old one. For example, AI-generated search summaries and our new habit of asking everything from “the chat” may make it more important than ever to invest in high-quality content on owned channels, to nurture and involve your core community on social media, and to avoid relying too heavily on chatbots.
#teamtour
In Healthcare, Sharing Information Is Not Enough – We Need More Dialogue
Stinne Vaga: The Coming Months Will Be a Decisive Time for Healthcare Companies To Bring Their Solutions To Policymakers
Christman Roos: In Technology, the Winners Will Be Those Who Can Connect Their Solutions To The State’s Real Problems
Kairi Uustulnd: The Rapid Pace of Change in the Defence Sector Demands Ever-Greater Flexibility and Awareness from Businesses
At META Advisory, we work every day to ensure our clients receive the best possible advice and support – and behind that is always our people. Over the coming months, we’ll introduce our consultants more closely: what they do, what they’ve done, and how they think.
Stina Pley
If you go back three years, when you had just joined META, what surprised you most about agency communications work, and what did it teach you?
How has that shaped the way you work at META today?
Since I had already worked in a PR agency before joining META, there were no major surprises about communications work itself. Everything was simply on a larger scale – the clients, the projects, the opportunities.
One of the very first things I worked on was a major public procurement proposal. It quickly made one thing clear: at META, good teamwork depends on proactivity, determination, asking the right questions, and having the confidence to ask for help when needed. Those values have stayed with me ever since – and they still shape the way I work today.
What has been the biggest highlight or achievement of your career – the one you are most proud of?
I hope my biggest achievements are still ahead of me.But if I look at my career as it stands today, I would say my greatest achievement has been having had – and taken – the opportunity to work across very different areas of communications.
The most rewarding moments usually come when, despite the challenge, the work gets done to a high standard, and I can clearly feel that I have gained new skills or knowledge from the experience.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned over the years working at a PR agency?
I think assumptions can create a great deal of confusion – both in client work and in communication with colleagues.
I also try to remind myself that people do not always understand things in the same way. In some situations, that can be a strength – for example, in creative work. But in most cases, it is essential to align on definitions and make sure everyone is working from the same understanding.
#teamtour
At META Advisory, we work every day to ensure our clients receive the best possible advice and support – and behind that is always our people. Over the coming months, we’ll introduce our consultants more closely: what they do, what they’ve done, and how they think.
Christman Roos
If you think back more than five years, to 2021, when you had just joined Rud Pedersen, what surprised you about government relations work at the time, or what did it teach you? How has that experience influenced the way you work at META today?
Joining Rud Pedersen came at exactly the right time for me. By then, I had already built up considerable experience in the public sector, and it felt like the right moment to take on new challenges. What surprised me most was the warm welcome into the new team – it felt as though we had known each other for years. I carried that experience with me when I joined the META team, and now I try to pass it on to new colleagues myself, so that their experience and integration into META can be as smooth as possible.
What has been the biggest highlight or achievement of your career – the one you are most proud of?
Over the years, there have been many highlights and achievements, both big and small. At META, I have learned that even small wins deserve to be celebrated. One recent highlight was definitely winning the title of PR Agency of the Year at the Golden Egg awards. On a personal level, I am proud that I have been able to expand my expertise into fields I previously had no experience with. In addition to digital and technology issues, I am now comfortable contributing to discussions on food, beverages, and agriculture as well. I am also proud that, through our clients’ advocacy work, we have helped keep the voice of reason heard and, in doing so, mitigated risks that could have threatened businesses.
What has been the biggest lesson you have learned over the past five-plus years working in government relations and agency life?
The biggest lessons come above all from both positive and negative experiences. Starting with the latter, this work has increasingly reinforced for me that assumptions are the mother of all problems – the less you assume, the better. Time and again, you find that logic and real life often have very little in common. On the positive side, one important lesson has been that in a professional team, you can trust your colleagues completely. No one is left to struggle with their concerns alone.
If you had to sum up in one sentence what lies at the heart of good government relations work, how would you describe it?
Good government relations work is like skilful rally navigation – the better your preparation and the better you account for the conditions, the better the result.
#teamtour
Meta Advisory is Estonia’s Communication Agency of the Year 2026
For the second year in a row, and for the fourth time in the past eight years.
Meta Advisory has been named Communications Agency of the Year for the fourth time. Our managing partner, Andreas Kaju, shared his thoughts with the Estonian Association of Marketing Communication Agencies about the past year, creativity in PR, and broader developments in the world. Here are a few excerpts from the interview.
Congratulations, you have once again been named Communications Agency of the Year! On social media, you said that last year was both the hardest and the most successful year yet. What exactly did you mean by “hardest”?
It was the hardest because the people at Meta worked harder than we ever have before. It is a very special feeling. I am 45, and I cannot remember the last time I felt like this.
Of course, people tend to remember more recent things better. The company’s early years probably involved much more work, and they were also psychologically harder because back then, there was less of a sense of security. I still remember that when I founded the company, I had no savings at all and lived off my partner’s civil servant salary.
I cannot say that last year we were operating at the very limit of our abilities. I do not want to leave the impression that our field is more difficult than it really is – this is work that is well within all of our capabilities. We are not da Vincis inventing the world, nor are we Medicis funding those who change it. Perhaps we are more like Machiavellis, advising the people who change the world.
Everyone wants hardworking employees. How do you find them?
We are never rude or dismissive, but we are direct. I no longer recruit everyone myself, but over the past 16 years, I have hired more than a hundred people. In the interviews I still take part in, I try to intimidate people a little.
I talk about the difficulties that come with this work. You have to manage many projects at once, and paradoxically, the less experience you have, the more projects you tend to handle.
The second thing is the stress that comes from the external environment. We are a relatively large company in our field, and there is quite a lot of action here. To be honest, it is a stressful job. Crises ripple through the company – when one colleague is dealing with a crisis, in a sense, all of us are.
The third thing is that we have our own values and red lines. There are some topics we simply do not work on, but even so, we have clients in a range of sectors, including some where there is a lot of tension and polarisation in society. An employee needs a strong moral backbone to cope with the ambiguity of working life.
The fourth important quality is diligence. Previous work experience and former employers help reveal that.
I also have a couple of entirely subjective indicators that help me identify diligence in younger people. One has studied or lived abroad, even briefly. That can include working as an au pair or doing some other kind of job abroad. It gives people life experience and makes them independent very quickly. Most young people do not have wealthy parents supporting them – they live on scholarships or work while studying.
The second is more controversial: people who have done sports from a young age. The third is the most subjective of all – young people from rural backgrounds. We have graduates here from top schools in central Tallinn and Tartu with excellent exam results, but hard work also shows in someone who has come from a small rural school that ranks who knows where in exam league tables, and still fought their way into a university abroad. That shows you want to achieve something. Those people have a monkey on their shoulder constantly telling them to keep going, keep going.
I understand that the Golden Egg, and creativity more broadly, has sparked debate among PR agencies. This year, many awards went to creative agencies and clients. In one social media post, you said that PR is above all a game of ROI. In your view, should the jury measure so-called real impact alongside creativity, and if so, how? And are PR agencies actually creative in the traditional sense – or do they need to be?
This can be discussed from many different angles. We are members of TULI, we take part in the Golden Egg, and we have always had the opportunity to contribute to the competition. I do not want to place myself outside it and start criticising the Golden Egg – that is not what I do. But to answer your question: it is inconceivable that awards should be handed out for work that means nothing at all to clients. That would be absurd. It is not TULI’s role to reward such things.
I am not saying that this has happened, but in order to answer, I need to explain my starting point. In communications, the Golden Egg should have a meaningful overlap between the client’s perspective and the jury’s criteria. We judge work based on best practice in communications as an art form, but there also needs to be common ground with clients, who care about results.
There is no point in presenting the jury with a campaign that was never actually shown anywhere, that had no stakes, and that produced no outcome. That would be absurd. It is a hypothetical argument – I am not claiming that such work is being rewarded today. After all, we ourselves have been chosen as Agency of the Year four times, I think.
Communication is, by its nature, a practical attempt to influence reality, perception, and behaviour. It is not something we do for our own entertainment, not an end in itself. That is why I clearly expect that, in communications, the best work is the work that has the greatest impact, that achieves the goals set for it or comes very close. Beyond that, there should also be a number of other criteria, and those are already well reflected in the Golden Egg jury rules.
This is not like ordering from Wolt or Bolt, where an algorithm gives you the best restaurant that exactly matches your preferences and the nearest courier to bring your food. Of course, there is always subjectivity, and it depends on the composition of the jury, their personal preferences, life experience, grudges, and intrigues. That is fine – it is all part of the game. In Estonia’s tiny pond, it can be amusing, but it is okay.
Even so, what matters most should still be what the client looks at. The client looks at effectiveness. Results are not always the same thing as ROI, but I believe that those who want to win awards need to be able to show what the client achieved through the campaign.
It is a completely different issue that the highest score this year went not to an agency, but to an in-house team. That may well happen again in the future. By all means, the best work that meets the criteria should be the work that gets awarded. We are going to have discussions about this with the heads of other agencies. People have approached me because they understood from my social media posts that I see it as a problem that agencies did not win many awards. No, that is not a problem at all.
We are judging the best communication work. If that work is done by an in-house team, I am very pleased. Especially since the team behind the year’s best communications team award (the President Kaljulaid Foundation – editor’s note) is led by our former and highly valued colleague, Cairit Rebane. Taken together with our alumni, we won both Agency of the Year and Team of the Year, so we are perfectly fine with that (laughs – editor’s note).
Agencies do not need to win if in-house teams are better. The Estonian market is so small that if we were competing for awards only against other agencies, the competition would be pretty thin.
There is a lot of anxiety in the world right now. What should Estonian or Estonia’s communication look like at this moment?
The challenge is to say that, perhaps objectively, things are not actually bad in Estonia. We could operate like all the other border countries that have learned to live with the fact that they are located in a historically challenging place. Even so, they go about their lives with confidence and courage. They always prepare for the worst, but they live each day as though there are 10,000 good years ahead. That is possible, but it requires enormous self-confidence.
That is what we currently lack. We live in a strange era, worried because of who our neighbour is. We have not found the key to self-confidence – how to believe in ourselves despite all the anxiety and stress. To believe in our education system and our economy. To think: out there is Mordor, but here things are in order. We have a plan, we act, we live our lives, and from time to time we practise for the worst. We do that so we can be sure we know what to do if the worst should happen.
We have yet to find that self-confidence, and I believe professionals across our entire field could help build it in the years ahead. Communication can also be ironic and sarcastic, but I feel that our society needs communication that is self-aware, realistic, and looks to the future with optimism – not communication marked by resignation or hopelessness.
Read the full interview on the TULI portal.
Photos by Marek Metslaid.
At META Advisory, we work every day to ensure our clients receive the best possible advice and support – and behind that is always our people. Over the coming months, we’ll introduce our consultants more closely: what they do, what they’ve done, and how they think.
Karin Järvet
1. If you mentally go back more than five years, to 2020, when you had just joined Rud Pedersen Group, what surprised you about the job, or what did it teach you at the time? How has that experience influenced the way you work at META today?
Joining the Rud Pedersen Group made it very clear to me just how much stronger the work becomes when genuinely different experiences and perspectives are brought to the same table. I came from a private-sector marketing background, while many of my colleagues had experience in the public sector, and that combination showed me that the best solutions do not come from thinking alike, but from combining different kinds of knowledge smartly and purposefully.
That experience also pushed me to use my own skills and knowledge more consciously and with greater depth. It continues to shape how I work at META today: I see different backgrounds not as a contrast, but as a tool for building stronger ideas and creating more value for clients.
It also reinforced my belief that strong strategic, communication and leadership skills create value across very different contexts – they are highly transferable and universally relevant.
2. What has been the biggest success or achievement of your career – the one you are most proud of?
The moments that matter most to me are the ones when it is genuinely clear that our work created real value for a client. Not just that a project was completed, but that it made a difference, helped move something forward, and truly mattered to them – especially when they take the time to say so.
Moments like that are just as meaningful to me internally, too: when a colleague says I have helped them move something forward, whether in a small way or a bigger one. Impact is impact. For me, the growth of people and teams has always meant more than any title ever could, and there is something deeply rewarding about seeing others succeed and knowing you played a part in it.
And then, of course, there are those especially sweet moments too – like winning my first Golden Egg award this year. 😉
“And then, of course, there are those especially sweet moments too – like winning my first Golden Egg award this year.”
3. What has been the biggest lesson for you during more than five years in a PR agency?
One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that communication is not only the substance of the work – it is also one of the most important tools we have. Good work does not emerge from assumptions, and it certainly does not happen in a vacuum.
It requires honest communication with your team, your client, and, in truth, with yourself – about expectations and possibilities, strengths and risks, but also doubts and the things you may not yet be ready to take on. The more transparent those conversations are, and the earlier they happen, the stronger the collaboration, the better the outcome, and the healthier the working environment.
And one more thing: clarity is almost always more important than speed. Especially when the goal is not simply to react quickly, but to do genuinely good work.
#teamtour
NB! Microsoft on loobunud Internet Exploreri arendamisest ning sellele uuenduste tegemisest ja ei soovita antud internetibrauserit turvanõrkuste tõttu kasutada. Internet Explorer ei toeta enam uusi võrgustandardeid ning antud veebilahendus ei tööta siinses brauseris korrektselt.
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