Canadian Retailer - Spring 2014 - 39

VIP CUSTOMER SERVICE

What drew Rick Padulo to retail?
"To me it's the instant gratiﬁcation. I get to
see the results of my work today tomorrow.
I get to see the sales by the category and by
region. I get to play with the numbers in my
ad campaigns and ﬁgure out that different
things are working and some things aren't.
That motivates me. I get to see what works
and what doesn't and I can tweak and adapt
accordingly. It's an amazing industry."
What does Rick Padulo think of "Big Data"?
"There's of lot of data today that is based
on research that doesn't give you a real
understanding of what's behaviour and
what's attitude. Research has screwed up
a lot of companies. You need to understand the difference between attitude and
behaviour. Part of it is being able to sift
through the bullshit."
How do you create a seamless experience
for the brand and customer?
"You need total collaboration with all of
the various components in the mix-the
agency, the media, the marketing department, the executive of the client. The tactical and strategic is as important as the
inspiration, which is the creative. Once
you've got that you just have to ﬁgure out
what the best way is to communicate it
across every single medium that you're in
and on. It's not brain surgery."
What does Rick Padulo think about loyalty?
"We used to say that you're inundated
with about 1,200 commercial messages
a day. Now it's more like 3,000. And
people today are a little harder to hook
and they're a lot more ﬁckle. Yesterday, if
you made a client happy, they told three
people about you. If you pissed them off
they told ten. Today, if you piss off your
client, 30 people know about it instantly."

Change and adaptation

Today, as the company works with clients
like Rexall, developing their latest ad and
marketing campaigns, he reflects on the
changes that have taken place within the
industry, seeing opportunities to expand on
Padulo Integrated Inc.'s success.
"Currently, there are so many more channels to reach the customer; so many more
lines of communication. And, we have a lot
more information now. Today, retailers are
able to talk to the customers that they want to

talk to. It's very much like direct marketing-the more targeted
you are to the people that should be listening to your message,
and the more targeted your message is to them, the more effective it will be. But if you don't know how to get it to them, if
you're not utilizing all of the channels, then you're failing."
He admits that the marketplace is changing and that all of
the new channels of communication offer new possibilities to
retailers and their marketing teams as they adapt and evolve
with the market and today's consumer. But he's very keen to
also point out that those who neglect the traditional channels of communication while adapting and evolving are doing themselves a huge disservice.
"First, I'd say that the demise of television, radio and newspaper has been greatly exaggerated," he admonishes. "Are
they down in numbers? Is the marketplace changing? Are
people getting their information on the Internet? Yeah...that's
all true. But the reality is, those traditional channels are still
major components of everything that we do. These forms of
media are not dead, but I think your company might be if you
choose to ignore them. You just need to tweak the way you
leverage all of these channels. But, that's retail. You have to
be nimble and you have to change. I've always known this. If I
didn't, I would have gone out of business ten times by now."

www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer | spring 2014 | canadian retailer |

http://www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer

Canadian Retailer - Spring 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Canadian Retailer - Spring 2014