The Willard Marketing Monthly Cover

By Michael Willard
Publisher

How do we choose who will be featured on the cover of Willard Marketing Monthly each month?
We don't toss darts. We don't pose the question to a soothsayer. We don't sell covers to the highest bidder, and no amount of advertising will garner the opening article; or, for that matter, any story between the covers.

We choose our cover subjects the old fashioned way: We argue. The editorial board is made up of the people you see listed as publisher and editors of the magazine.

The first thing we look for is whether the story will be interesting.  We also look for a marketing "problem" or a "problem and solution", thereby giving the story an added dimension. 

We have had three covers thus far in the early history of our magazine: Bruno Le Cicle, the Nestle Ukraine chief; Ian Borden, general director of McDonald's Ukraine, and the current issue's Peter Chernyshov, who heads up Carlsberg-Slavutich Breweries.

We don't choose covers with an eye toward who is doing business with Willard, the company.  None of the first three covers featured clients. As chance would have it, the November and December covers will feature Willard clients.
However, it would be disingenuous to say our parent ad and PR company, Willard, wouldn't be thrilled to do business with the companies we've written about. We're not dumb.

We try to choose the cover of Willard Marketing Monthly as much as 45-60 days in advance. This leaves plenty of time for the interview, photography and for our illustrator to come up with a memorable visual. Covers and stories are already in the works for November and December.

There are other points that make Willard Marketing Monthly different, other than the fact it's the only English-language marketing magazine in Ukraine.  We do not show stories to the subject of the article in advance. We will, however, read back quotes and fact-check on details.

It goes without saying that no one can buy a story in our magazine, unless it is clearly marked as an advertisement.

We're not trying to be different. We just think you deserve an honest magazine