All
Star Direct
& Personal
By Billy Sharma
Alan Brodeur
There is more to him than meets the eye.
The first time I met Alan Bradour was six years ago, when we were both on a steering committee to help Humber College set up a direct marketing program. Alan at that time was president of Watts Direct Marketing Services Inc. and I was the managing director of Brann Worldwide’s Toronto office.
What surprised me about him at that time was his knowledge of our industry. I thought to myself, “Boy, for a supplier he really is well informed about direct marketing.”
It was only recently, after I interviewed him, that I found out why he is so knowledgeable about our business. Little did I know when I first met him, that Alan had worked for many high profile direct marketing agencies in key positions including Wunderman, Vickers & Benson and Ogilvy & Mather.
What else did I learn that I did not know before?
Well, that Alan grew up in Montreal and attended university studying marketing part time while working; that his first job was for a large printing company in Montreal called Ronald’s Federated. He still remembers the address very clearly, which he can recite by heart. The company printed the Reader’s Digest monthly magazine.
He explained, “My job as a messenger was to take packages of proofs to the Digest by public transit. One day while running for the bus, a car making an illegal turn hit me.
“I wasn’t hurt badly, but that made me think that perhaps I needed to find a job that was more suited to my qualifications and where I could work indoors.”
Luckily one day he saw an ad for an account executive for Wunderman.
“Being curious, I investigated and found out that they were heavily into direct marketing, so I applied.”
His luck held as he beat out several hundred other applicants for the job.
At that time, Alan Booth and a few other ex-Readers Digest folks had founded Wunderman. It was the first agency in Canada that specialized in direct marketing.
“I spent a lot of my time during the first few months gathering information, learning the ropes and attending training sessions in the US, since, nothing similar existed in Canada.
“My first job in the agency was counting and processing orders from TV stations for Elvis Presley’s record collections. He had recently passed away but was still extremely popular. Tens of thousands of orders poured in during a very short period. It was a great hands-on learning experience.
“When I look back, everything about my job was great. It was the most memorable period and I had really lucked out. I still consider that job to be my best job ever, because I learned so much every day and I was working with some incredibly smart and fun people and we had such great clients.”
Some of those smart and fun people along the way included the following
He listed some of them for me: “First, Alan Booth at Wunderman who gave me the opportunity to get into direct marketing. I also met Mona Goldstein. Then there would be Marilyn Stewart who brought me into Ogilvy & Mather Direct, where I spent eleven years, five in Canada and six amazing years in New Zealand.
“And Rip Gauthier who took a real leap of faith to appoint me as President of Herbert A. Watts, one of Canada’s largest mail service providers, when I had absolutely no experience.”
He also came to know such pioneers as Linda Trauzzi, David Ogilvy and the great copywriter Dayton Bird, the latter two he considers as wonderful imaginative people and eccentrics.
The other side of Alan Brodeur ...
Alan is quite humble, a very private person and extremly pleasant to talk with. He loves his family and his dog.
He can be very charming and I am sure that when he met his wife Jocelyn at a local swimming pool where he was the swimming instructor and a lifeguard, that’s what she saw in him. Jocelyn was a flight attendant. They hit it off, got married and have been together for over 30 years.
She continued to work as a flight attendant for many years but now works for a large European Cosmetic Company.
“She is a mother, a caregiver, a part time model, an actress and my soul mate,” said Alan proudly.
“We have two grown sons, Christopher 25 and Scott 23, who have traveled with us all over the world.
Alan enjoys reading and stays fit by running at least 4 or 5 miles as often as he can each week. He also trains at a gym on the weekend. His secret passion is cars, in particular Corvettes, having owned three in the past. He does find that the new versions are shorter and miss that great feature – pop-up headlights.
“My wife and I enjoy traveling and our goal is to visit every major island. We take vacations as often as we can. Our favourite so far is Kauii which we have already visited twice.”
So it is no wonder that he went to work in New Zealand
Fortunately, David Ogilvy’s passion for direct marketing led him to establish an office in New Zealand. It was the first direct marketing office of an International agency. After working at Ogilvy & Mather Toronto for five years, Alan entered the New Zealand adventure when the opportunity arose.
“I wanted an international transfer and there were openings available in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore and Auckland at that time. The agency sent Jocelyn and me to visit these cities. We spent five days in Hong Kong, a week in Thailand, four or five days in Singapore and then down to Auckland for another four or five days.
“We spent time in each office, met the people, saw some clients, checked out schools and housing. Then we came back to decide which city we would pick.
“My wife and I both really liked Singapore. It was a tough decision between Singapore and Auckland. However, at that time we had eight and six year old sons so we felt it would be easier to stay in an English speaking environment. We opted for Auckland.”
He also told me with a smile that, “There are about four million people and eighty million sheep in New Zealand. About one million people live in Auckland. It’s the main city, although the capital is Wellington, so we had offices in both cities. Wellington was important because the government, post office, telecoms and all of the major nationals’ offices were there.
“I was managing director of the Auckland office but when the manager of the Wellington office left, they gave me both offices to run. I would spend Monday and Tuesday morning in Auckland, take a flight down to Wellington on Tuesday afternoon, stayed there on Wednesday and Thursday, and came back to Auckland on Friday.
“We had suddenly moved to the farthest corner of the world, from a comfortable environment with lots of friends and family to one where we were strangers in the community. We had to become familiar with the customs and culture of our new surroundings.
“One of the oddest things to adjust to was that people stopped working and went fishing or sailing on a nice summer’s day.
“Shortly after arriving in Auckland, I met someone at a social event from the company, Telecom. We hit it off and started to work on some small projects for them. Gradually as the projects got larger, I was introduced to more senior people within the organization. When the company restructured, our agency was chosen as the direct response agency. Telecom soon became the agency’s largest client throughout the country and my division became the most profitable division in the country.”
Why did Alan return to Canada?
The children were growing up and we wanted to come back home. Alan was still under contract with Ogilvy, who were obligated to bring them home. However, Alan did not want to return to the agency world. He longed to do something different after seven years at Wunderman and eleven at Ogilvy and three at V&B. He had had his fill of agency life.
“Sadly my Dad had passed away while we were living in New Zealand. This was a major heartbreak for me,” said Alan.
His parents were a major influence in his life.
His Dad, Phil, was a Canadian soldier stationed in England during the second world war. That’s where he met his wife Joan at a local pub. Having lived through the hardships of war and rationing, they knew how to live with less.
So it was no surprise when Alan told me, “I was the middle child and given the best start in life. My dad and my mom would sacrifice so that we kids would not be deprived of anything. Dad would go to work without long underwear in the winter so we could get new warm coats and gloves.
“I remember a time when they bought me a brand new six-speed-racing bike. It was my pride and joy. My parents had saved for a long time to buy me this bike. One day it was stolen right from our backyard. I was heartbroken. My parents searched desperately to find my bike but with no success. Yet, even though they could not afford it, they bought me another one because it was not my fault and they didn’t want me missing out.”
Back on native soil
Returning to Canada, he knew that he still had a network of friends. One of them was Rip Gauthier, who was then chair of Herbert A Watts.
“At that time Rip was looking for someone to take over as president. I met him and some of his consultants a few times and he asked me to put together a plan, which I did. He liked it and I was hired.”
Another person that Alan has always stayed in touch with is his old client and friend, Paul Atkinson. They met years ago when Alan was working for Ogilvy & Mather and handled Shell Oil as a client.
“I developed an amazing friendship and rapport with Paul. He would listen to my ideas and recommendations and often run with them. He gave the agency and me a great deal of latitude and responsibility. We worked hard to maintain his trust and it paid off.
“I think it was the most satisfying account I ever worked on in Canada.
“Paul retired but keeps on working on his own business even though he discovered that he has cancer. I still keep in touch with him.
“I have lived a good life, found my soul mate, we have raised two great kids and I have met many interesting and wonderful people. I’ve traveled around the world, seen some amazing places and people. It’s been a wonderful adventure” he concluded.
So, when you put it all together, Alan is a highly skilled and knowledgeable direct marketer. He has seen both sides of the business, from an agency perspective and as a supplier. He has great networking skills, a loyal group of friends and a sense of moral responsibility to our profession, to elevating direct marketing. I saw this from our very first meeting at Humber College.
So, the one thing that did not surprise me is why he was elected President of DMAT. He is deservedly the best man for the job.
Billy Sharma is President and Creative Director of Designers Inc., Toronto