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It's fall 1997 and a battered Eaton's is just coming out of bankruptcy protection. The retailer has been in crisis mode for months -- staff have been working nights and weekends-and tensions are high.
Peter Housley, vice-president of marketing, and other key Eaton's executives are anxiously waiting to see the creative executions its ad agency, Toronto's Roche Macaulay & Partners, proposes the retailer use to relaunch its chain to jaded consumers. It's a three-page newspaper spread. The first page reads: "After much deliberation, and a small thing called near bankruptcy, we decided we needed to change a little." "Okay" reads the second page, and then the third-page kicker: "A lot."
If Housley decides to buy the ad, he will be responsible for essentially having Eaton's admit to and apologize for years of spotty service, poor product selection and decaying stores. "So when the agency presented that, we could have been stepping on toes," remembers Anne Sutherland, president of Toronto-based Planning Ahead, which worked on the business with Roche Macaulay. "But Peter was like, 'Oh my God! I love that, I love that!' He was the one who fought (that ad) through management because he saw it was the right tone and right vantage to take at that time."
It's that kind of gutsy energy and enthusiasm that has earned Housley a reputation as a "change agent" and "visionary" among his peers. "He has a real entrepreneurial spirit," says Geoffrey B. Roche, president of Roche Macaulay & Partners. "There's no stopping his meteoric climb."
That climb included relaunching the Eaton's brand before exiting in 1998, in part because he did not agree with the upscale positioning the new board of directors wanted to take. He next led the team that helped turn around Zellers, no easy feat given that it was up against the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart. Then in March of this year, Housley surprised even his colleagues by resigning from what he considers "the best marketing job in Canada." Not to mention leaving behind one of the biggest advertising budgets in the country at about $160 million.
The reason? To become chief executive officer of iMG International Media Group in Toronto, a $100-million company that operates in Canada, U.S. and Australia. Its business:...