The obsession with systems, the way things work, started for 8-year-old Phil Wiland while delivering milk with his grandfather from the dairy to a processing facility. There were conveyors and the drums filled with milk would disappear.
“I said ‘pa, you didn’t get paid’ and he said, ‘there’s a system for that.’ That’s when I fell in love with the notion of systems,” said Wiland. “I’d go to the library and read books on systems and books on computers and technology.”
Wiland, chairman of the audience development firm that bears his name, last night received the inaugural Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) Changemaker Award during the DMAW’s annual awards ceremony. It was one of numerous awards, including inducting John Bell, vice president of sales at MMI Direct, into the DMAW Hall of Leaders.
Other honorees included:
* DMAW-DMAW Educational Foundation Industry All-Stars
Joanne Wilson, vice president, advancement operations, The Humane Society of the United States and Justin McCord, senior vice president, marketing and communications, RKD Group.
* DMAW Educational Foundation O’Hara Leadership Award
Mary Harms, associate clinical professor, Department of Marketing, University of Maryland
* DMAW Volunteer of the Year
William “Bill” Tighe, senior account director, RR Donnelley, and Mark Gould, direct marketing director, American Israel Public Affairs Committee
* The DMAW Board Appreciation Award
Erica Waasdorp, president, A Direct Solution
* DMAW Educational Foundation Jonah Gitlitz Board Appreciation Award
Rick Powell, CEO, PMG
DMAW Rising Star
Aidan Wheeler, associate director, business development, SimioCloud, a division of Moore
* DMAW Emerging Leader
Leigh Ann Doyle, production manager, PMG
* DMAW Partner of the Year
The Harrington Agency
* DMAW Board Superhero
Melissa Ford, principal and senior vice president,
Mal Warwick Donordigital
Wiland’s obsession with systems, data and technology was helpful during his stint in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War when he was assigned to work in data processing and helped to build a data center for which he received a Commendation Medal. “It taught me how to do things at scale,” said Wiland.
He opened his first tech and direct response business, Wiland Services, in 1971. Wiland Services developed what is believed to be the first merge/purge system to use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify duplicates. “AI is not new. It is advancing like all tech advances. It is absolutely not new,” said Wiland.
When he sold the company in 1992, the final release of its merge/purge software was being used to process more than 10% of all standard class mail entered into the U.S. postal stream. Wiland Services also created the first national directory of postal carrier routes, prior to a discount regulation existing and before the USPS had its own national directory.
After selling Wiland Services, Wiland founded six catalogs. The largest catalog business was Colorful Images, which he built from startup to having more than two million, 12-month buyers at its peak. He sold the catalog operations, and in 2005, formed Wiland, Inc., the audiences and data company serving marketers, fundraisers, and publishers, as well as a wide range of agencies.
Wiland is looking ahead to what’s next. He has a personal goal he admits “will probably be impossible to achieve but … you don’t achieve great things without going for it.” The idea is to “increase performance of audiences by more than enough” to cover postal costs. Said Wiland: “That’s an extremely tall order. I’m in invention mode.”
