December 2008

Richard Toker
The story of an open book. By Billy Sharma

About nine years ago, I met Richard Toker when he worked at Bimm Communications Group. I was so impressed that I have kept in touch with him for all these years but have always wanted to get to know him better. Finally, I got the chance when we connected recently for this interview. What I learned was that his life and his achievements are like an open book.

Richard Toker is an avid reader.
He told me, “I try to maintain a steady diet of fiction and non-fiction plus magazines. I’m a bit of a magazine junky. I read The New Yorker, Business Week, Advertising Age, Paste (where I discover all my new music) and The New York Times regularly. When it comes to books, I tend towards literary fiction and the more theoretical or scientific variety of business books such as Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational or Clay Shirkey’s Here Comes Everybody. I guess I go from one end of the spectrum to the other.”

This is not surprising because he graduated with an honours degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto.

“I was planning to do a Master’s degree and go on to a career in teaching. To raise money to go away to school, I got a job at a marketing research company, where I wrote brand and advertising tracking reports and customer satisfaction studies. The latter especially intrigued me and it was the beginning of a career-long obsession with customer experience. Overall, I really liked marketing research and the broader world of marketing and communications.

“I knew I was on to something when I made the transition from marketing research to advertising, and direct response, and joined Ogilvy & Mather Direct Response in the mid-eighties.”
Richard has worked on many great brands across numerous sectors.

“Maybe it’s the long copy that drew me to direct marketing, but I have been able to leverage my passion for and skill in crafting narrative strategy and ability to put myself in the shoes of the customer, in order to develop brand communications that resonate for customers.

“I led the development of a segmented customer communications e-mail program for Rogers Wireless customers when I was director, Direct & Interactive Marketing, in the Brand and Marketing Communications department. This was a monthly e-mail going out to about one million customers. It was segmented by type of customer and featured dynamic content. We worked closely with the Rogers Customer Base management team and Wunderman and won a Gold CMA Award in 2007.
“This program was among dozens of lifecycle management and communications programs that helped drive record customer revenue and reduce churn for Rogers Wireless. My role was to lead part of the marcom team on strategy development and project management; ensuring brand consistency and overall communications best practices. After many years in the business, I had developed great instincts for this and had learned to trust them. I feel that’s often the difference between good and great. You can have the correct instinct but it takes some maturity to trust it and go with it.”

Richard has worked on both the agency and client side of the business.
“During the ‘90s, I was at Bimm Communications Group. Like Ogilvy a few years earlier, this was a special time in my career because I was able to put a big check mark against an important personal goal: to get a good grounding in entrepreneurship. I have always had an entrepreneurial bent and knew I wanted to pursue it. Brian Bimm is the ultimate entrepreneur and he really taught me everything about running an independent agency. I have many fond memories of pitches and projects for the likes of HP, Pitney Bowes, Scotiabank, Philips, Fantom Technologies, Fuji and The Loyalty Group. We were a small team, relative to the big agencies, but we did some pretty big things.
“Some of the great memories from my time there are the launch of Fantom Technologies’ first Web site and subsequently its first e-commerce site. Another was a fun little campaign we did for Philips to launch a new wet-dry shaver. I think it was the first time ever that Philips sold something online. We also created a number of very successful B2B dimensional door-opener campaigns for Scotiabank, The Loyalty Group and Dun & Bradstreet, among others.

“Once we even did a cool dimensional for Air Miles for Business. The package contained a real airline seatbelt. We had no idea what regulatory hoops we would need to jump through to clear a shipment of seatbelts over the border. We were asked if we were manufacturing aircrafts, how big the planes were, how many passengers, etc. We barely made our mail date! But it was a great success.”
Richard believes the future must involve online marketing.

“Over the past number of years, I have been more and more involved in online, including search, display and social media. I just want to keep going in this area but continue with my focus on customer experience. Today, all roads lead to the Internet, to mobile connectivity, information and entertainment. The way I see it, today everything has or should have a response mechanism – whether it’s a URL, toll-free number, an sms code or a QR code. Every communications channel can help tell the story and create or sustain a dialogue and thereby extend and enhance the customer experience. Everything is measurable and optimizable. So, to a degree, it’s all DM today! And, of course, it’s still all about telling a good story in an artful way.”

Richard is a true Torontonian.
“I was born in Toronto. I am the youngest of three. I am married and have four kids – three boys and a girl, ranging in age from five to 17.

“In our family keeping in touch is very important and so ‘staying connected’ is a concept that is very natural to me. We are close with our parents, our siblings and many nieces and nephews. Family life is rich and vibrant. My wife Judy really keeps me inspired and grounded.

“Judy works as an art director and prop stylist in the TV commercial production business so we also enjoy sharing our perspectives about brands and campaigns; and the kids provide me with my own little focus group when it comes to new technology and also customer experience. Kids put things in the simplest terms. The other day my five-year-old son was helping me with the laundry. As I was pulling clothes out of the dryer, he asked if he could get the stuff from the wetter. That’s what it is, right?”

He loves to ski and is a big baseball fan.
“I am an avid skier. My idea of a dream wintertime existence is to take off every few weeks and go someplace exciting to ski.

“Last March, I skied with my brother and a friend in Vail. The conditions were epic! This winter, I will be in Aspen and Whistler.

“I also adore baseball. I wasn’t much of a player but I’m a great spectator. I also enjoy reading about it. One of my favourite books is Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I recommend it to students. Really it’s a business book first and a baseball book second.”

Richard is very involved with the CMA.
“I have taught direct and digital marketing for the CMA and the ICA for some time now and I really love it. I also sit on the CMA Education Committee and help to develop curriculum for the Certificate Program. This too is part of the ‘narrative’ or ‘story-telling’ theme in my career. I really enjoy bringing to life marketing strategy and the intricacies of the direct and digital channels for an audience that is motivated to learn and advance in their careers. I also find that it motivates me to keep learning: I have to stay on top of what’s working and why and be able to explain that to the students.”

He feels indebted to many people.
“I have many people in my life that I am thankful for and who have been big influences for me. In business, John Wright, Mark Weisbarth, Brian Bimm, Carolyn Meacher, Suzanne Filiatrault — all great marketers and amazing people to work with.

“In my personal life, I have my parents and in-laws, my siblings and my wife Judy. I have a wide network of friends. My closest friend and confidant is Michael Davis, a great entrepreneur, intellect and family man. All have given me gifts of insight and inspiration at one point or another. But the greatest of all is, of course, my wife Judy, who is my hero, my conscience, my number one fan and my own personal comedian.”

And now there is a new chapter in Richard’s career.
“My career path has always been about the narrative, whether books or brands. Along the way two other influences have emerged for me that set me up to do what I’m doing now: technology and customer experience. I even came up with my own word for it: customerbility. It refers to the ease and satisfaction with which customers can get, understand, use and enjoy products and services. It’s like usability but with the focus on the customer instead of a Web site or device. Customerbility is about how easy, rewarding and satisfying it is for customers to:

Find you;
Buy you;
Understand you;
Use you;
Get help, information or advice from you;
Buy more from you;
Like you; and
Love you.

“Increasingly over the years, I have been drawn to technology categories and brands (Rogers, IBM, HP, Fuji, etc.). Working at Rogers was the ultimate because I got to be part of the mobile communications revolution at an incredible time for the industry and Rogers. And I got to play with the coolest devices!

“At the same time, I found that the retention side of communications (vs. acquisition) was the big turn-on for me and within that, specifically, customer experience.

“Today we have the communications know-how and tools to truly improve and influence the relationships that all brands –especially tech brands – have with their customers. And, we understand the potential and significance of taking a lifecycle approach to managing customers and measuring customer value.

“Recently, I had a Eureka moment which led to the founding of a new business called Howclip Video Manuals. We create how-to videos for products that come with instructions… because nobody has ever had a good user manual experience… and video is easier to read!

“In addition, I am doing a lot of consulting work. Clients include a major computer manufacturer, a telecom, a professional sports league and a not-for-profit. I love consulting right now but the long-term goal is for Howclip to take off as a significant marketing service enterprise.

“In developing Howclip, I wanted to mesh my direct and digital marketing communications know-how and passion for customer experience with filmic creation and production. I have aligned myself with some of Toronto’s best in that area and I’m really excited to move into this next chapter in my career.

So now that I have gotten to know Richard a bit better, I can see what fascinated me about him in the first place. He is truly a novel person and an open book.

Billy Sharma is president and creative director of Designers Inc., Toronto. He can be reached at 416-203-9787 or by e-mail at designersinc@sympatico.ca