A cup of Second Cup coffee in one hand, arm draped casually over the back of his chair, Hugh Dow has the look of someone easing contentedly into retirement. There are, he says, no signifi cant regrets over unachieved objectives, no second-guessing any of his thousands of business decisions, no reservations about his carefully laid succession plans. For the past few months now, he has been making an uncharacteristically tentative entry into his new life. When it comes, it will be blissfully free of client demands, the unrelenting pursuit of the innovative and new. There will be no more striving to meet New York’s ambitious growth targets, no frantic scramble to attract and retain business. Let someone else worry about all that.
One day soon, he will pick up the tennis racquet that sits beside the door and stride out of his 10th floor office, with its superb view of the Toronto Harbour and Lake Ontario beyond, for the last time. The everyday sounds of office life–ringing telephones, murmured conversation, the Ding! of the elevator–will be replaced by the satisfying “thunk” of nylon strings on felt. There’s a hint of fall in the air on this sunny late summer Wednesday. Dow is wearing black dress pants with a blue and white checked shirt. No tie. His youthful appearance belies the fact he’ll be nearly 69 when his five-decade career officially ends on Dec. 31.
He’s been fielding a steady stream of well wishes since formally announcing his retirement as chairman of Mediabrands Canada on Sept. 10, and there are numerous farewell parties planned for the weeks ahead. Just that morning, Corus Entertainment president and CEO John Cassaday called to inform him of an upcoming event in his honour being held by the Canadian broadcasting industry. “It’s going to be a busy fall I think,” says Dow. Right now though, he and Joanne, his wife of 40 years, are adjusting–quite nicely, thank you–to what he describes as a “pretty dramatic change” in their lifestyle. They recently sold their home in Toronto’s Yonge and York Mills area and purchased both a condo in the city’s St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood and a house in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
A genial man with a purposeful walk, a firm one-pump handshake and a tendency to preface observations and pronouncements with the words “without question,” Dow is alternately praised as a “class act,” a “visionary” and a “formidable competitor” by his peers. They laud everything from his character and his intelligence to his accessibility and his “tough but fair” approach to business negotiations. ZenithOptimedia Canada president and CEO Sunni Boot, who has been his adversary and colleague for longer than she cares to admit, jokes that his “darn British accent” instantly gave him more credibility than his competitors. “The accent distinguished him,” she says. “But I have to admit that it was his work that catapulted him to the top.” Dow’s legacy is a testament to both his tenacity and an inability to accept “no” for an answer. He introduced the concept of the agencyparented media services company to North America and played a key role in the evolution of media buying from a little-respected department within full-service agencies into a wholly independent business.
“I can still remember the days when media would have the last 10 minutes in a three-hour new business presentation,” he says. “Without question that has changed, and I hope I played a big part.” Along the way, he’s been a tireless advocate for better research and measurement, serving on the board of numerous industry associations including the Canadian Media Directors’ Council (CMDC), Print Measurement Bureau (PMB) and the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM). It’s an approach that has been adopted by many of his employees.
“Without question, the managers here accept that as part of their responsibilities and realize the importance of it,” he says. “I believe that both they and our clients benefit from that as well.” Plaudits for Dow’s business prowess and contribution to the Canadian marketing industry come from all corners. “He was, without a doubt, among the most dominant industry leaders of his time–if not the industry leader,” says Corus Entertainment’s Cassaday, who has known Dow for more than 20 years. “[He thought about] the industry as a whole, not just the interests of his agency and his clients.
“He is one of those individuals that is so highly regarded, he can rise above the parochial interests of his agency and his clients and ensure the long-term success of the advertising industry.” Rita Fabian, executive vice-president of sales and marketing for CTV Inc., describes him as a “fantastic builder and visionary” noting his keen eye for new media trends and technological developments, and his ability to determine how they could be harnessed on behalf of his clients. An avowed supporter of the concept of advertising “convergence,” both when it seemed revelatory and long after the term had fallen from vogue, Dow ensured that clients including Johnson & Johnson and GM were among the very first Canadian marketers to implement large-scale integrated campaigns with the likes of CTVglobemedia and Canwest.
“He was ready to jump on that bandwagon and be the first and the best,” says Fabian. Rogers Publishing president and CEO Brian Segal, meanwhile, describes him as “a giant in the industry,” someone who played a vital role in the development and evolution of Canada’s print and broadcast measurement systems. Dow also showed remarkable patience and willingness to work with newcomers to the marketing communications industry, says Segal, and was an invaluable sounding board for him personally as he made the switch from a career in academia to publishing. “Throughout my career he’s been extraordinarily helpful in terms of new ideas, giving advice on what might work, might not work,” he says.
“He will have an enormous legacy because he’s contributed so much. He’s touched so many people in such a positive way.” “Visionary is a dramatically overused word, but in Hugh’s case it applies in several instances,” says PMB president Steve Ferley, a regular partner/ victim of Dow’s on the tennis court “He did have vision, and it was usually correct.” Their association stems back to the late 1970s, when Ferley was VP of marketing for the now defunct Wool Bureau of Canada. Ferley had long wanted to see the media function uncoupled from the full service agency offering–which aligned perfectly with Dow’s vision for the discipline.
Dow would see his vision come to fruition with the 1990 creation of Initiative Media. It would be North America’s first agency-parented media planning and buying firm, and it provided the blueprint for an entirely new industry model. The story of Initiative’s creation encapsulates both Dow’s uncanny prescience and the wherewithal required to see such an ambitious undertaking to completion. While at MacLaren he had brazenly approached GM Canada, which at the time had its media buying spread across eight agencies, and presented his concept for dedicated media operation that would be responsible for the entirety of the automotive giant’s media planning and buying. It would take an astonishing 27 presentations–across Canada, at GM’s Detroit headquarters and in Miami–before the automaker finally came on board. “It was an enormously satisfying experience for me and obviously a game-changer in the business,” says Dow. “It was something that was greeted with criticism and opposition from many of our competitors.”
The naysayers were vociferous in their disdain for the plan, claiming that clients didn’t want the media function to be separate from the rest of the agency. “I’ve found that whenever you’re going to do anything of importance, it’s always a good sign when people tell you you’re crazy,” he says, raising his index finger as if to impart a crucial piece of acquired wisdom. “If someone tells you you’re crazy and asks why you’d want to do anything like that, or you’ll never pull it off, this is important.” Never mind that the next few years would prove “excruciatingly difficult,” as Initiative and its management team struggled to adjust to a world in which they were single-handedly responsible for every aspect of the agency’s performance, from contracts down to its P&L. Dow remembers the struggle he faced simply to get people to acknowledge Initiative as a standalone media services company. “I had to keep correcting people, over and over again. ‘We. Are not. A media department. We are a media company,’ ” he says. “If I told people that once I must have told them 10,000 times.”
While Initiative’s creation stands out as a major highlight in a stellar career, Dow also experienced something of a late-career renaissance. By the summer of 2008, he had ceded the day-to-day leadership of M2 Universal, the agency he had led for years, to Sara Hill. That was followed by an unlikely new role as executive VP, director of global operations for Universal McCann. He was 66. The role meant that Dow assumed responsibility for UM’s global HR, research tools and systems, overseeing their development, refinement and marketing. Working with Nick Brien, some 20 years his junior and a fast rising star within the Interpublic organization (he was recently named CEO of McCann Worldgroup), Dow was invigorated. “I found [Brien] truly inspirational,” he says. “His passion was extremely infectious and he had a unique ability to bring teams together, introduce a team spirit and really put a true global network in place. It was a very exciting, inspirational time for me–to work with somebody that had the mandate to make change and to bring people on board.”
Dow managed the position out of Toronto, which meant frequent trips to New York (35 in one year alone) as well as San Francisco and L.A. “It was a wonderful experience that really kind of charged me up at a time most people are waiting to sail off into the sunset,” he says. But now two years later, Dow too is ready to drift away from a professional career studded with accomplishments and a reputation as one of the media industry’s pre-eminent figures. A leader renowned for his courage, tenacity and perseverance, he says it’s “enormously satisfying” to have played some part in the media function’s emergence in the marketing communications equation.
But now, his vision planning will be far more personal in nature. He’ll soon meet with a builder to discuss a planned “man cave” that will house his collection of vintage Jaguars–including the painstakingly restored 1956 D Type that won Best of Show at one of those exacting Concours level car shows in June. There will also soon be ample time, finally, to indulge his other great passions: tennis and gardening. Many people can testify to his competitiveness in business and on the tennis court, but does he bring the same approach to his flowers? “What do you think?” he says with a smirk. I think his neighbours in iagara-on-the Lake won’t know what hit ’em when the Begonias start blooming. After nearly 50 years, much of it spent at the vanguard of his profession, he’s ready for the next adventure to start.
Without question.
