On October 9, 2025, the NPP and higher education students of the Marketing Department of the Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design joined the open webinar “Military Marketing: How and Why to Turn Your Brigade into a Brand”, which was organized by the NGO “Ukrainian Marketing Association” together with the PR agency PRoector.

The event brought together more than 400 participants, military communicators, marketers, PR specialists, media representatives, teachers of higher education institutions and higher education students, including future specialists in communication marketing. The webinar became not only an educational platform for sharing experiences, but also an example of a modern synthesis of communications, branding, and public dialogue between the army and citizens in times of war.

Webinar speakers

• Alexander Borodin – Senior Officer of the Communications Department of the Third Army Corps.
• Valentin Dzyubenko – Deputy Head of the Strategic Communications Department of the 1st Corps of the Azov Military University.
• Volodymyr Degtyarev – Head of the Media Interaction Group of the 2nd Corps of the Charter Military University.
• Moderator: Vlada Mykolyuk, Founder of PR Agency PRoector.

Main Highlights of the Webinar

During the meeting, military experts shared their own stories, strategies, and challenges faced by brigade communications departments.

The topic was how to shape the brand of a military unit, how to tell the stories of the people behind it, and how to build trust between the army and society through truthful communication. As emphasized by the president of the NGO "Ukrainian Marketing Association" Iryna Lylyk, "Military marketing is about trust, sincerity and humanity. We consciously build a bridge between the army and society, because we live in conditions of war and cannot be in parallel worlds."

Oleksandr Borodin presented the experience of building communications in the Third Army Corps. He told how a team of media professionals, combining combat experience with skills from advertising agencies, created content directly at the front. It was the trust of commanders and effective cooperation between combat and communication units that became the key to success.

Valentyn Dzyubenko shared the experience of developing the Azov communications unit. He emphasized that today military communications are a separate layer of new history, which is becoming a subject of study for world armies.

The Azov media unit combines work with journalists, creating content for social networks and fundraising through the AZOV.ONE platform.

Volodymyr Degtyarev, head of the media interaction group of the 2nd corps of the Charter National University, emphasized that effective military communications are based on truth, trust and team harmony. The Charter unit actively implements partnership initiatives, in particular, the creation of educational and cultural hubs in the cities of Ukraine, as well as social campaigns at the intersection of military and civilian communication.

As a result, moderator Vlada Mykolyuk outlined a kind of Short-list for the communications department, which any unit can apply:

• collect and tell real stories of the military in formats understandable to a modern audience (Instagram, TikTok, media);
• attract ambassadors among famous personalities and opinion leaders.
• define the unique identity of the brigade (professional or cultural emphasis).
• use non-standard formats of donations and partnerships.
• develop online and offline spaces for interaction with civilians.

Such tools, according to experts, help create brands of trust, resilience, and humanity that strengthen society during war.

For NPP and higher education students of the marketing department, participation in such events is an opportunity to study practical cases of communications in real time, expand the understanding of the role of marketing in crisis conditions, and see how brand technologies work at the national level. The webinar became an important source for updating the content of the educational components of the OPP "Communication Marketing" and developing research in the field of social and military branding.

The Department of Marketing of the KNUTD sincerely expresses its gratitude to the Ukrainian Marketing Association and PR agency PRoector for organizing an extremely informative webinar, which gave higher education students the opportunity to get acquainted with modern practices of military communications and branding.

We express special gratitude to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for their courage, professionalism and openness to dialogue, for sharing their experience, forming a new culture of trust, stability and unity.

It is thanks to such meetings that future marketers understand that marketing is not only about business, but also about people, about the truth and about the joint force that brings victory closer.

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10.10.2025