Melanie Wells, a senior editor at Forbes, covers the marketing arena soup to nuts for the biweekly, part of the Holy Trinity of consumer business publications along with
BusinessWeek and Fortune. "I once heard an executive say he'd rather see his company featured, warts and all, in Forbes than have a puff piece in one of our rival publications,"
Wells says. "He said investors and customers pay close attention when Forbes says positive things about a company." Wells edits most pieces appearing in Forbes concerning
marketing and her written pieces frequently run as cover stories, the latest focusing on so-called neuromarketing, or the use of brain imaging technology to see what's happening
in consumers' brains when they interact with brands. Wells covered marketing for USA Today before joining Forbes in 1999.
Wells' Bugaboos
- PR executives who pitch the same story to several different publications. Wells recalls getting a pitch on a Southern resort town that piqued her interest. She flew down
to the resort, soaked it up and returned to New York to bang out the piece. Shortly before going to press, however, Wells saw the same story in Worth, an indirect competitor to
Forbes. Since Forbes prefers exclusives, the story was killed and Wells -- who admits that she probably should have asked if the story was being pitched elsewhere -- called the PR
person back for an explanation. "She said she didn't know," Wells says. "The right thing to do would be to say, 'This is a little awkward but Worth is interested in the story,
too.' PR people should be very upfront when they pitch." - PR people who, in a word, lie. Wells is well aware of the "paid liar" moniker that's either fairly or unfairly attached to PR execs, but says "it's pretty bad out there." One
coup de grace happened during Wells' stint at USA Today. She got a detailed letter from a PR exec pitching a prominent business personality who was estranged from his (also
prominent) parents. The letter specifically said the personality hadn't discussed the issue with the press, but was ready to do so if Wells would agree to a story. An interview
was arranged and after delicately picking her spot, Wells pulled the trigger. "He said, 'Melanie, I don't talk about that.' I told him his PR person said he would be willing to
discuss it and he said, 'He's wrong.'" The PR person was ultimately fired from that particular account. "This guy had lied just to get me in the door," Wells says. "I called up
and I said, 'How dare you?'" - Sit-ins. Wells dislikes it when PR people feel obligated to sit in on interviews with sources. "In order to have a productive conversation, it needs to be a conversation
between two people," she says. Having a PR person monitor the discussion "throws things off. You can't get any chemistry and it just doesn't work." She's made exceptions, of
course, to bag some big enchiladas, but generally prefers a one-on-one. "The best stories are the ones in which I've had unfettered access and I think PR people would agree." To
wit: Wells spent Labor Day in 2002 with JetBlue CEO David Neeleman, free of any PR buzzards, and it made for a "much more rich and entertaining story, which is not just OK for me
but OK for PR."
What Works: Wells recently fielded a call from a PR person who wanted to introduce her to his client. Wells didn't commit to anything but agreed to meet the client for a
casual lunch. After arriving the PR person made the introduction and then got lost. "The client was very unguarded," Wells says. "It made for a freewheeling lunch and did result
in a story."
Contact: Melanie Wells, [email protected]