Willard Marketing Monthly Is Going International
While we were taking a short summer hiatus, our world dramatically changed. Over the coming months, we'll be adding Middle East, London and Mumbai editions of our magazine.
This was brought about by an agreement with London-based All About Brands, with whom we have joined to beef up Willard's overall capabilities and reach.
Our magazine will follow All About Brands into each of its markets with fresh and localized content. It will be a challenge, but we have brought back the esteemed Scott Lewis to manage the project.
This is only one of Scott's new assignments. He will also direct training for Willard clients and for Willard staff, as well as serve as a senior PR counselor and creative person. He rejoins the leadership team as executive vice president.
As the magazine's publisher, I have a new role as well: I'll be a "roving ambassador" to the various All About Brands markets, helping propel this dynamic business into the future.
At Willard, we look forward to this exciting opportunity.
* * *
In our last issue, we were heavily involved in a campaign to reduce the practice of psid press in Ukraine. We continue to focus on this problem, and hope not to end up as Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. We believe this is a noble goal, and that the problem is not so much with the press as with the companies that serve as enablers by purchasing press. We believe that buying press is definitely not a PR function, and impedes the development of press freedoms in this country. Additionally, we have held one Willard Roundtable on the topic.
If you would like to join us in this effort, please sign up on our Facebook page ("East European Companies Against Buying Press"). If you would like to discuss the issue and how to combat it with me, please call me at +380 (50) 355 9040. I look forward to hearing from you.
A Relevant Cause
Willard, the company, and Willard Marketing Monthly have searched diligently for a relevant cause with which to identify the company and the magazine. We have one in our back pocket, and we like it.
It has to do with an area of Corporate Social Responsibility that is important to every Ukrainian who would like to have a free and unfettered press. It has to do with the sad practice of commercial payment for news stories.
However, we take a somewhat different position. We believe the burden is not on the press but on the companies -including multinationals-that buy the press.
We know of corporations in virtually ever segment -otherwise good corporate citizens--who buy stories in Ukrainian press rather than trust what I call the basic theory of news-a good story that is news will rise to the top of the stack and get printed.
It would be hypocritical for us as a company not to acknowledge from the outset that in the 15-year history of Willard that, on occasion, we might have been guilty of such transgressions at the behest of a client. I have always had, as they say, plausible denial with a blanket rule of no purchased press. However, that's not good enough.
In the past, we have donated medical equipment to a hospital for older Ukrainians from revenue garnered from sold paintings. It wasn't a fortune.
We have supported a short-story contest and hosted a community website to promote public relations standards. I always like to think our seven-year experience publishing The Ukrainian Observer was a social cause. There were certainly no monetary benefits, and the community got a pretty good English language magazine that took on Ukrainian topics from culture, to history to current political debate.
However, having first started working with newspapers at age 19 and having spent a dozen years as a reporter and editor, this issue of attempting to stem paid stories is as close to my heart as my skin.
We have launched a Facebook page called "East European Companies Against Paid Prss." We will be soliciting supporters-not money. If anyone would like to talk to me directly about this, my telephone is (+380) 50 355 9040.