And you are? Robert Adeland, Marketing Strategies & Solutions

As appeared in The London Free Press by Kate Dubinski
Sunday, January 10, 2016 5:50:15 EST PM

You can’t mistake Robert Adeland for a Leafs’ fan.

A meeting room at the Marketing Strategies & Solutions office on William Street includes two seats from the old Montreal Forum, and there are framed pictures of legendary Montreal Canadians goaltender Patrick Roy’s jersey retirement night.

There are shots of beloved centre and Captain Jean Beliveau, and speedy Guy Lefleur’s hockey stick.

Adeland’s Montreal childhood included going to Habs games with his parents, all the spectators dressed up in their Sunday best – suits and ties can be seen in the stands of the older Montreal games in photos that hang in the office.

When Adeland came to London in the early 1970s to do a two-year MBA at what is now the Ivey Business School, he didn’t expect to stay in the small city.

“I was a starving student. I thought London was the worst place possible. I didn’t even want to come back to pick up my degree after I graduated,” Adeland said.

Life was good in Montreal. He was set up by a friend on a blind date, and met the woman who would become his wife and business partner, Mina.

But, as luck would have it, he got an offer he couldn’t refuse, from GM Diesel, in London. Adeland and Mina packed up and moved to London in 1983. They didn’t expect to stay long.

“All of my working life has been in marketing,” Adeland said. “I love the challenge. Every day there’s a new opportunity to look at new problems. The clients are all different, they’re all at different stages of product development.”

Adeland spent the first part of his marketing career working for GM, which taught him that, “if you don’t understand the product, then you can’t market it.”

He honed his skill of really coming to understand the product, the customer and the clients that the customer is trying to sell to.

“The customer has to see how this something can help him. If you’re not using the right words in the right context, you’re a telemarketer,” Adeland said.

For a while, Adeland’s family even relocated to Detroit, to work for an expanding product line that was to be a partnership between Detroit Diesel and farm machinery giant John Deere.

Although the deal fell through after less than a year and the family moved back to London, Adeland enjoyed working on marketing the big machines.

It was, like for many, London’s ‘good place to raise a family’ image that brought the Adelands back to the Forest City after the short stint in Detroit.

The family, including daughter Shauna, who now works in patient administration at an Ottawa hospital, and son Ethan, who does Internet marketing for the food industry in Vancouver, went back to their former schools.

Shauna, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 5, had an established care network the family was reluctant to leave. They were also active with the Canadian Diabetes Association.

Adeland could have stayed with GM if he’d wanted to, but decided it was time for a new chapter.

“Having worked for large corporations, you get comfortable. You’ll never be really well-to-do, but you’ll be well taken care of. I decided it was time that I could do things better, faster cheaper. I should have done it years earlier.”

He had “ideas, thoughts, and inspirations” that were better suited to his own business.

He started Marketing Strategies & Solutions, serving the industrial business-to-business market.

When a company wants its piece of construction equipment sold, they come to Adeland to get the deal done.

“Why is this one different than this one? What will this do for me? It might look like an excavator but it has a hydraulic cab, it can do things an excavator can’t do,” Adeland says, showing a miniature Sennebogen brand material handler.

The Sennebogen — an actual sized-one — was purchased by John Zubick Limited, London’s well-known scrap metal dealer and a client.

Adeland has also won awards for creating a calendar that highlights Zubick’s scrap metal art.

“I love this because it’s a calendar that’s useful and a piece of art,” Adeland said.

The calendar won the silver award by the Summit Organization, which recognizes ad work from smaller agencies around the world.

Adeland is proud that he and his team — wife Mina minds the back shop while he works in the front — can do a lot with less.

“It’s probably really easy to be creative with a couple million dollars. We try to be creative with $10, because our clients don’t have a million-dollar budget.

The marketing campaigns the team puts together try to “foster conversations, drive people to the organization and then it’s their job to close the deal,” Adeland said.

“They’re in the business of running their business, not running ads or putting together brochures or writing the content for their websites. I understand who our customers are and who their customers are. We have to invest the time to get to know that.”

Adeland continues to be involved with the Canadian Diabetes Association, and he sits on the Board of Banting House.

He loves silent auctions and many of the Montreal Canadiens memorabilia has been bought at fundraisers. Others have been gifts, like the Guy Lafleur stick.

“We’d been for 10 years with a client, so he wanted to get us something with the No.10 on it,” Adeland said.

No.10 is Lafleur’s jersey number. It was the perfect gift.

EITHER/OR?

Fries/salad: it should say salad but it is well done fries

Country/rock: rock

Android/iPhone/BB: iphone

Beer/wine: single malt scotch

Book/eReader: book

Tea/coffee: coffee

Non-fiction/fiction: fiction

Tims/Starbucks: Starbucks

DVD/cinema: cinema

Cycle/drive: drive

Night owl/early riser: early riser

Dog/cat: dog

Pen/Pencil: pen

THE STATS:

Born: Montreal

Family: wife, Mina, one son and one daughter

Education: Concordia University undergrad degree in economics, MBA from Ivey Business School

Previous Jobs: marketing for GM Diesel and Detroit Diesel

THE QUOTE:

It’s probably really easy to be creative with a couple million dollars. We try to be creative with $10, because our clients don’t have a million-dollar budget.

Posted in In The News