Canadian Retailer - Spring 2014 - 37

"What does the induction mean to me?" he asks rhetorically, thumbing his chin, peering through his aviators and his
office window out toward the Toronto skyline, in an effort to
accurately capture the significance of his latest achievement.
"It means I'm getting old," he finally blurts out in laughter.
Sitting on the couch in his office, still looking out toward
the cityscape, he muses that when recognized with an award
which honours a lifetime body of work, the recipient can tend
to question their current relevance. However, for Rick Padulo, his induction in the Marketing Hall of Legends pleases
him, and leads him to focus on some of his achievements that
might otherwise go unnoticed by the industry in which he
plies his trade.
"It's an amazing thing, and it makes me very proud to have
my own industry elect me as a legend. That says something.
But, if we're talking about lifetime achievements, I think the
biggest achievement of my life has been my three boys-
Shaun, Richard and Alex."

Integration and understanding

The company that he runs believes in telling the truth and in building brands. But, as
Padulo points out, it always has to be done in
an integrated way, which involves heavy collaboration with the client for which he works,
and getting his hands dirty in the process,
like the time he worked a shift flipping burgers at Wendy's.
"The greatest opportunities in my life are
highlighted by the people that I've had the
chance to work with. I've worked with people
like Bob Black at Blacks Camera, Tom Leon
at Leon's Furniture, Paul Walters at Zellers.
And I worked with them very closely, because I knew that to build a successful campaign for them, I needed to understand their
businesses intimately."

"If you understand retail
and you understand fixed
and variable costs and
you're intimately involved
with suppliers and vendors
and you understand where
the money is, then you
can build an exciting and
effective campaign."
Listening to the Canadian marketing
icon speak, you're struck immediately by
the passion and love with which he talks
about his family. In fact, when he took the
stage to accept his induction into the Hall
of Legends, he did so with his sons, Richard and Shaun, and
with the memory of his late son Alex.
"They mean a hell-of-a-lot to me," says the proud father. "I
really mean that. Everything I've achieved throughout my
life, I owe in part to them."
Though, with all of the accolades that he's been lauded with
throughout his career, this latest is still not enough to sway
his perspective and focus from what he does.
"So, I've been voted Marketer of the Year; Entrepreneur of
the Year; my company has been named one of the 50 BestManaged Companies in Canada, and then I receive this Hall
of Legends honour. I've been fortunate, the frontman, but it's
to my outstanding team and amazing clients that I owe our
really big successes. Through our close collaboration working with clients, we've always been able to find an edge."

A lot of what Padulo and his team do, he
says, is simple blocking and tackling and
understanding the business.
"If you understand retail and you understand
fixed and variable costs and you're intimately
involved with suppliers and vendors and you
understand where the money is, then you can
build an exciting and effective campaign."
And build exciting and dynamic ad campaigns, they have. However, what's perhaps
most impressive about Padulo Integrated Inc.,
is the fact that all of this blocking and tackling, as Padulo puts it, has been done independently, without the aid of multinational conglomerates or the banks.

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Canadian Retailer - Spring 2014

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