1) Wayne Moffatt has had a long career in direct marketing, transforming struggling divisions at companies like Reader's Digest and Yves Rocher into profitable ones. 2) At Reader's Digest, he converted the magazine subscription renewal process from positive to automatic renewal, significantly boosting profits. 3) He helped rebuild Yves Rocher's struggling direct marketing division in Canada, turning it from a loss to a slight profit within a year when others thought the customer file was dead. 4) Moffatt emphasizes the importance of informal brainstorming and learning from experienced market leaders to generate new ideas.

1. dmn.ca ❯ Direct Marketing ❯ April 2011 Column 17
direct&Personal
by Billy Sharma
Wayne Moffatt
The man with the Midas touch
“We ended up transforming the business from a huge loss in 2006 to a
slight profit in 2007, something no one had thought possible because
everyone in the company presumed the customer file was dead.”
follow them. Rather than communicating with customers over and over word of French and I was the only English-speaking person employed by
to get a positive result and achieve a high subscription renewal rate, it the company.
was a way of just finding out who didn’t want to renew. So I worked very “I was given the option of going to rural Quebec for a month to learn
closely with Barbara Robins, our lawyer, for quite a long time to find the French but opted to learn it on the job with the people I worked with.
ways to be able to do this legally in Canada. The test period took three They were all so patient with me. It took only a couple of months to start
years to complete but we more than doubled magazine profits. to speak it fairly well, but a year to stop making each sentence sound like
“One of the other areas that I was responsible for at Reader’s Digest a question.
was retail sales of books and magazines. Traditionally, these were two “While learning French I was also learning about what was so unique
departments that didn’t trust each other very much. By focusing on a about the company. Some of the friends I made in those days are still my
strategy that increased the new titles we were publishing substantially, friends today and that sentence is definitely not a question!
we were able to buy Canadian rights for books that other publishers “I remember I was invited to a convention at Yves Rocher in France
had developed internationally and sell them very successfully. A case one year. We had done a test in Canada on outside lists that had doubled
in point was the Canadian Medical Association Guide to Over the Counter response rates but was not in the direction that the company wanted to
and Prescription Drugs. It ended up on the retail bestseller lists for several go. So I was put on the agenda of the meeting as an interesting test about
months. We even awarded a plaque to the CMA when we sold over what we didn’t want to do. I had written all of the presentation in advance
200,000 copies. and had it translated into French before leaving for the meeting.
“At the end of my term at RD, my divisions of books and magazines “When I was reviewing my presentation the night before, I realized
were continually fighting for the number one and number two spots in that I sounded ashamed of my test results, so I scrapped my speech and
terms of profitability. rewrote it in my own French version. Afterwards, I was told that when
“Then at Yves Rocher, I built the Canadian DM division into a real profit I started delivering my speech, there was a comment from the back of
or Wayne Moffatt, the most fun to be had in this business machine, after having inherited a business that was losing money. I then the room about The Digest Guy. When I finished, the same people said,
F involves turning ailing companies around. As he told me,
“When I think back about many of the places I have worked for,
left to work for Baker Blais Marketing, an ad agency that specialized in
direct-to-consumer direct marketing.
‘That’s a really interesting test!’
“The owner’s son got up to recap the meeting and added, ‘we may not
the times when it was the most fun were when the divisions I was running “After I left Yves Rocher, they took their eyes off the ball with regard like the test results that Wayne just presented, but we have to respect the
had been losing a lot of money.” direct-to-consumer marketing. They had transitioned the business creativity that generated them. All that we need to do is harness creativity
Wayne started working at Reader’s Digest in 1976. more toward the internet and had lost all of their focus on relationship like that and channel it in the directions we want to go, and we’ll get
“It was my first interview after finishing school. I remember the marketing. there.’”
guys who hired me even to this day. They were Brian Broadway, the “When Yves Rocher approached me to come back, we had to hire a Wayne admitted that, “Ideas come at the strangest of times. I
subscription sales manager, and Michael Kilby, the marketing director. brand new marketing team, based out of Montreal, to drive their North remember one year at Reader’s Digest, we were having some real
They described the job and what it entailed. It had to do with marketing American business. It was a real rock-and-roll time. We looked at mailings challenges in terms of outside list selection. One night a bunch of us
subscriptions and I said to myself, ‘that’s the job for me.’ I got it and it that were all ready to be printed, made important changes to them and got together over a drink after work and brainstormed about how to
was a great education, learning about direct-to-consumer marketing. improved profitability. deal with the problem. As a result, we found a way to effectively select
Everybody worked very hard. “We ended up transforming the business from a huge loss in 2006 to outside lists in a much more controlled way and the process was used
“The first project I was given was a two-year marketing forecast a slight profit in 2007, something no one had thought possible because for many, many years. You can’t ignore the benefits of informal, non-
for all campaigns. It involved a lot of detail work that was all manually everyone in the company presumed the customer file was dead. confrontational discussions.”
calculated. It ended up being a wonderful training exercise that gave “Yes, I’ve had a lot of fun making money for all of my employers and “There have been so many people over the years who have influenced
me a great basic education about the Digest’s subscription sales never regretted anything.” me. The people that I worked with at Reader’s Digest and Yves Rocher
methodologies. For a long time I tried to ensure that new hires had to do Wayne was born and raised in Montreal and has lived there his entire made it very easy to come to work everyday. I’ve had the good fortune
P&Ls by hand rather than by computer, so they too could learn where the life, except for one year spent working in Toronto. of having worked with some of the market leaders. There’s always been
real leverage points were.” “I married my wife Carole 35 years ago. We have two sons—Chris a significant growth curve in knowledge that comes from working with
During Wayne’s tenure at Reader’s Digest he converted the magazine who lives in Toronto and Jon who lives in Montreal. I originally studied that type of person. I’ve also had the privilege of working with a lot of
subscription renewal business from positive renewal to automatic Computer Science at Loyola University, now Concordia. people over the years that want to do better—not only for themselves,
renewal. “When I started looking for a job, the one thing I didn’t want to work but also for the company they’re working for.
“Automatic renewal was widely used by the Reader’s Digest in Europe in was IT. However the basic knowledge of computers has helped me “The person who has had the biggest impact on me as a marketer,
as a way of getting subscription renewals that was radically different from understand list dynamics considerably. a businessman and a person was Bernard Poirier of Reader’s Digest. He
the way Reader’s Digest was operating in North America. The traditional “When I was young, I also used to play in a blues band. This was a great taught me so much, not only about the business, but how to get the most
thinking had always been that it was illegal to do automatic renewals in time in my life because we toured all over Quebec and I got to appreciate out of the people around me. Sadly, he recently passed away and I’m sure
Canada and the U.S. the province as a result. However, I haven’t touched the guitar in many I’m not the only one who misses him greatly.
“One day I sat down and looked at all the European samples and read years and I do miss this in my life. It’s something I hope to take up again “One of the things he used to say was that when it doesn’t work
all their marketing material carefully and it made so much sense to me to someday when I finally retire. out with an employee, the manager has to take 50 percent of the
“I’m very much an introvert. When I was with Reader’s Digest they sent responsibility. He was right; perhaps the employee didn’t get the right
me on a training course in Colorado that totally changed my life. As a training or have room to grow at his or her own pace. You have to look at
“Ideas come at the strangest North American male, I had always felt guilty about being so introverted. what you have done first to help an employee before giving up on them.”
The instructor of the course had said that an extrovert draws strength
of times. You can’t ignore from other people; an introvert draws strength from within. This small Billy Sharma is president and creative director of Designers Inc. He can be
the benefits of informal, non- expression changed my life forever and made me feel much more
confidant in who I was.”
reached via email at designersinc@sympatico.ca or by telephone at
416-203-9787.
confrontational discussions.” Wayne openly admits, “One of the most difficult experiences I’ve had
in my career was when I joined Yves Rocher the first time. I didn’t speak a