THE SID LEE STORY

THE

SID

LEE

STO

RY

Who

we

are

and

wha

t w

e do

NOM DE LA SECTION- 2 -



Dear readers,

Our goal through this magazine is to share with our clients and collaborators a peek info life in our ateliers and, more importantly, the passion of the artisans that work in them.

You will possibly notice that we call our ma-gazines “fanzines.” The word fanzine comes from the combination of “fan” and “magazine.” A fan-zine is a DIY artisanal publication created by a person passionate about a certain subject. Gene-rally published at irregular intervals, fanzines are printed in small quantities and distributed to a select audience. We call our magazines this since they are done in a similar spirit of editorial free-dom and exploration. Sid Lee artisans are free to create fanzines about their projects and interests which are then distributed to the relevant au diences. They are written, designed and prin-ted internally.

Many other Sid Lee fanzines present addi-tional aspects of our organization: our work, our Sid Lee Collective incubator, the cities that we have ateliers in (Montréal, Amsterdam, Paris and Toronto), etc. Feel free to ask for any of them or go online at sidlee.com for electronic versions and related videos.

The Sid Lee team


The sid lee storyWho we are and what we do

Sid Lee in a nutshell - 8

I was there! - Jean-François Fortin - 16

Here’s to us! - olivier Moreaux - 20

No boundaries - Jean-François Bouchard & Bertrand cesvet - 22

Skype is the limit - niels van de Walle, harM sas & lukas derksen - 26

Post-it - PhiliPPe Meunier - 28

Organizing chaos - ronald tanguay - 32

Interviewer interviewed - laurent laPierre - 34

Growing family - Martin gauthier, george giaMPuranis, Pétula Bouchard & kariM kendJouh - 36

Sid Lee Architecture - Jean Pelland & Martin leBlanc -40

Sid Lee in Paris - sylvain thirache -42

Sid Lee in Toronto - vito Piazza -44

Creative nomads - alex Pasini, Julie Provençal -46

Are your palms sweaty? - François lacoursière - 50

Sex will get you anywhere - Pétula Bouchard - 54

Manager in for questioning - daniel Fortier - 56

Lunch is served - gianMarco colannino - 60

Contact - 62

- 8 -- 8 -

Sid Lee in a NutshellHere is a basic overview of our company. please visit WWW.sidlee.coM for more information about our team and tHe work we do.

basic information

Year founded: 1993

Number of professionals: 450

Ownership: Independent, privately held

Area of expertise: Leveraging creativity to attain commercial objectives

Websites: sidlee.com sidleearchitecture.com jimmylee.tv

Contacts:New Business: [email protected] Human Resources: [email protected] Media Relations: [email protected]

Ateliers: Montréal 75 Queen Street, Suite 1400 Montréal, Quebec H3C 2N6 Phone: +1 514-282-2200

Amsterdam Gerard Doustraat 72 1072 VV Amsterdam The Netherlands Phone: +31 (0) 206 623030

Paris 12, rue du Sentier 75002 Paris France Phone: +33 (1) 44 88 83 90

Toronto 55 Mill Street Building 5, Suite 500 Toronto, Ontario M5A 3C4 Phone: +1 416-421-4200

Austin Suite D-102 3601 South Congress Austin, Texas 78704 United States Phone: +1 647-283-3357

SID LEE IN A NUTSHELL

NOM DE LA SECTION- 10 - - 11 -- 11 -

wHo we areWe conceive and communicate brand experiences.

Sid Lee develops brand experiences—by creating products, services and spaces—and markets them through advertising, experiential marketing, branded content, and interactive communications.

To embed brands, products, spaces, and services with more meaning and more resonance, we have assembled one of the most multidisciplinary creative teams in the world under one roof.

Our group is led by a team of more than 25 partners. This democratized approach to management has allowed Sid Lee to recruit and retain some of the best talent in different fields. It has also bene-fited our clients by keeping teams decisional and entrepreneurial.

wHat’s our reputation A few of the distinctions we’ve received

– Canadian Agency of the Year 2009 & 2010 – Marketing Magazine

– Best International Agency in the World finalist 2009 – Ad Age

– Agency of the Year Nominee (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) – Strategy Magazine

– Canadian Interactive Agency of the Year 2005

– One of the 50 Best Managed Companies in Canada – National Post

– Best of Show (2001, 2004, 2006) – Canadian Digital Marketing Award

– More than 300 creative awards from around the world

wHat we doWe offer commercial creativity services.Commercial creativity is how we define our service offering, since it encompasses all forms of business-related creative disciplines without the traditional boundaries and silo thinking between different crafts.

What makes us unique is the fact that we have been refining this approach for 10 years, long before it was fashionable to do or say so. We modestly think we have gained a tremendous head start in this evolved way of managing brands.

Broadly speaking, our services consist of helping clients conceive brand experiences (products, services and spaces) and communicate them (branding, advertising, interactive and experiential marketing).

More specifically, our services include:

Conceiving brand experiences– Architectural and retail design– Entertainment and attraction design– Industrial design

Communicating brand experiences – Branding– Advertising– Interactive marketing– Experiential marketing– Branded content

wHere we workWe work in more than 12 cities around the world.

Our ateliers are based in Montréal, Amsterdam, Paris, Toronto and Austin but our clients are based all over the world. Our teams travel regularly to North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to visit clients and work with suppliers.

Our head office is located in Montréal, an emerging international creative city that bridges North America and Europe with its singular mix of French-speaking culture and its multicultural fabric.


- 12 -- 12 -

How we workOne of the most multidisciplinary teams in the world.

We leverage the power of multidisciplinary thin-king by assembling artisans from different fields to an extent previously unheard of.

Here is a sample of the talents we have working as unified teams under the leadership of generalist thinkers:

– Art Directors– Architects– Strategists– Industrial Designers– Programmers– Analysts– Illustrators– Editors– Writers – Screenwriters– Producers– Motion Designers– Information Architects– Interior Designers– Graphic Designers – Content Managers– Experiential Producers– Directors

wHo we work witHWe work with like-minded people and companies.

Sid Lee enjoys long-term relationships with top-tier clients in more than 10 cities around the world.

Big, small, local or international, our ideal clients share one commonality: forward thinking.

+

COnCEIvIng Brand Experiences

COmmunICaTIng Brand Experiences

COmmERCIaL Creativity™

=


- 15 -NOM DE LA SECTION

- 14 -

Marketing Magazine, 2009/2010

Agency of the year

Ad Age, 2009

Agency finalist for International Agency of the year

Guy Laliberté, Founder cirque du soleil

“Two words: they rock.”

Lee Clow,chairMan and gloBal director tBWa WordWide

“They’re a very special kind of a new breed of ad-vertising model. They understand the entertainment aspect of new media and are not just technologits. They’re creative communicators, using a lot of different media to put brands out there with some very imaginative stuff. They’re really growing the right model and I admire what they’ve done so far. Everything now blurs together and I think it’s the reality of the future of our business. Anything that touches the audience is advertising. They come at it from a very different angle than we do but I believe they’re totally on the right track in terms of how you need to serve brands today.”

Nicole Vollebregt,adidas vice-President gloBal Brand Marketing sPort style

“Adidas is a very diverse brand spanning hardcore performance to high-end fashion and Sid Lee has shown a willingness to embrace the brand and use it as the starting point of the creative. The work speaks more clearly now about who we are. This year we gave them Sport Performance and they were quick to prove to us that they understand how to bring that side of the brand to life as well.”

Keith Degrace,

red Bull canada’s vice-President oF Marketing

“They’ve done some amazing creative work that they’ve been recognized for, but the most important aspect of our relationship is that we really engage them in our business. They challenge us and pro-vide us with different angles of thought, which is ultimately what you look for in an ideal agency par-tner, beyond just the straight creative.”

Claude Foisy,

videotron’s vice-President oF Brand ManageMent and content

“We can talk to Sid Lee about social networks, mobile apps, creativity in our sponsorships, tradi-tional advertising, content integration – everything. It would be much more difficult to execute at the same level without this kind of model. At the end of the day, we measure our success in sales. Sid Lee is not only cretive but also knows that what tey do is execute our brand mission and values to help customers experience and ultimately buy our products. And the results are there.”

Michel-André St-Jean,saq director oF Marketing

“Wine is a lifestyle product so you have to be present in consumers’ lives – not only in print, but online and mobile and Sid Lee was the driving force behind that idea. As a marketer, you’re not looking at just what the next campaign should be, you take all the points of contact – from a print ad to point-of-purchase – into consideration. If you look at the brands that do it best, like Apple for example, the brand integration between their retail store and online offering is the king of consistency you aim for. And Sid Lee has been very good at that for us.”

WHaT pEOpLE SaYHere is a sample of what our

clients and the press say about us

WHAT PEOPLE SAY

NOM DE LA SECTION- 17 -- 16 -

Tell us your story… I come from Quebec City and moved to Montréal. I was working in the re-tail field, in the operations sector, for San Fran-cisco Group. I was in charge of the male fashion department and that’s how I first met Jean-Fran-çois Bouchard, at a Les Ailes de la Mode boutique in Brossard. Jean-François must have been about 25 or 26 years old, and he bought himself a white Giorgio Armani suit for 1,500 bucks (laugh)! At the time, he was mostly the intellectual type, with his thick glasses, and he had chosen the ty-pical actor’s suit. I never saw him wear it again after that!

When I was looking for a new job, I contac-ted him and we made an appointment at his office for 7 a.m.! I wasn’t quite familiar with Montréal yet and I left home at 5 a.m., from Saint-Lambert, on the South Shore. I, of course, got there at 5:20 a.m. My girlfriend had given me notes on the gra-phic production chain and graphic design. I had time to go over them. I stepped into a somewhat disorderly building at the corner of Beaubien and Du Parc. At the end of a dusty hallway, I pushed the door open at 6:50 a.m., falling into the sound of jazz music, and Jean-François welcomed me saying (imitating him), “how about an espresso?” I was immediately charmed. We had a very plea-sant conversation during which print production never even came up.

I had more experience working in large orga-nizations, but here, I felt at ease. The details spo-ke to me: I was touched by the offices, with the pool table, the baby-foot table, an open area, and a small espresso machine. You could already feel a certain culture, a collegiality. People spoke to each other. It was difficult to know who did what, since everyone pretty much did everything. I was really attracted by this and especially by the people who worked there. It was obvious that the firm didn’t start out with much—not really any

clients, money or even experience—but you could sense its strong potential. I immediately noticed the huge contrast with the ad agencies I had visi-ted in the past.

Jean-François called me back that afternoon and invited me to come by for an entire day of tests on Word, Excel and PowerPoint. He then gave me a text on Generation X, which I had to summarize and then present in English and in French. Me, the guy from Quebec City… My English wasn’t that great. I invented a huge excuse to gain an extra week and have time to learn. I found books on the softwares I would be tested on. I borrowed a computer and practised every night after work. Finally, D-Day went off without a hitch. I didn’t do my English presentation and I was chosen. Jean-François offered me a co-ordination internship, which I accepted.

When I started, I was the twelfth employee. At the time, it was more of a design studio. We had barely started doing any advertising. Looking back, I realize we were actually a branding agency before the term even really existed.

Besides Jean-François Bouchard, I was the only one working in the account group. Everyone else was a creative.

Along with Philippe Meunier, we teamed up with very complementary partners. We acted like experts in fields we knew absolutely nothing about! Nothing was handed to us on a silver plat-ter, but it enabled us to develop tools of our very own. At the time, we were the underdogs in the advertising field. We had C-class clients and we were attracting very courageous customers who were looking to stand out. For example, Sleeman beer: the biggest hurdle we had overcome in Quebec was that it came from Ontario. So we capitalized on this by using the boss as the spokesperson, even though he couldn’t speak French. And it really worked!

I was there!

“ We Were the underdogs in the advertising World.”

Jean-François Fortin is vice-President and Partner at sid lee.

I WAS THErE!

NOM DE LA SECTION- 18 - - 19 -

We also made quite a few mistakes! Since none of us had ever worked in a firm—not even for ten minutes—we often reinvented the wheel or learned things the hard way… I remember that, at the very start, Jean-François thought an account manager was responsible for the firm’s accounting. Let’s just say we had a lot to learn!

Luckily, right after me, very competent people like Bertrand Cesvet, François Lacoursière, Martin Gauthier and Daniel Fortier joined the team, which gave us a bit more rigour.

I also remember that, 13 years ago, we had a webmaster. Honestly, besides playing video games, I don’t know what the guy did, but at the time, we already believed in it. We were the only ones to believe in the Internet.

What started off with 12 employees has now evolved to 400. I went through some great and some terrible times, namely when the interactive bubble burst and we had to let go up to fifty people. What stood out most in all that wasn’t a matter of money, but rather the bonds we forged.

Fifteen years later, we’re not “tourtières” from Lac Saint-Jean anymore, but the culture has remained! At the time, I was in charge of hiring everyone in the account group and what was most important wasn’t necessarily their skills, but rather how they fit in. We were looking for people who would match our culture. And that’s still true today: we’re driven forward by this cohesion that people have with one another. It’s surely one of the secrets behind our culture. No one can reproduce it. Our love for the product is real and that’s no bull.

I changed along with Sid Lee, developed other skills, a raison d’être, and a new way of acting, too. I do less advertising now. I do Web, experiential and event marketing…

But I’m sure that we’d still hire a Jean-François Fortin with as little experience as I first had. We try to combine lots of people with atypical paths, to not cut our ties with them—on the contrary.

Looking back, I’m not really nostalgic, even though the first years of my career were remar kable. At the beginning, everything had to be built from scratch. Now, we’re entering a new era, with very large clients. It’s different. It’s moving forward.

Today, I’d make the same choices again without a moment’s hesitation. If it were with the same people, Jean-François, Philippe, Bertrand and the others, I’d do it all over again without looking back.

1993 _ Two students launch Sid Lee (called Diesel back then). First client: Greek restaurant around the corner.

1996 _ Bertrand Cesvet joins. He was one of the first clients.

1997 _ First large-scale campaign for Sleeman is a runaway hit in Quebec. Puts Sid Lee on the advertising map.

1998 _ Agency ventures more aggressively into interactive marketing and merges with Stratégo, an interactive Web firm (partners are still with Sid Lee 10 years later).

2000 _ Interactive grows exponentially, and Sid Lee wins Cirque du Soleil interactive assignment against 5 international shops.

2001 _ The .com collapse hurts Sid Lee badly. Partners forgo salaries to keep shop alive and decide to put more effort into advertising.

2002 – 2006 _ Sid Lee is back with a vengeance. Wins numerous advertising accounts (Loto-Québec, Gaz Métro, Tourisme Montréal, IGA, etc.) and awards while being a leader in interactive. Interactive Agency of the Year in 2005. More and more assignments from abroad (MGM Mirage, Wines of France, etc.). Staff grows from 50 to 150.

2007 _ Sid Lee drops the name Diesel. Wins numerous new assignments in retail design, architectural design, advertising and interactive. Sid Lee Collective is launched as a creative incu-bator. Wins $20M Société des Alcools du Québec (SAQ) account.

2008 _ Sid Lee wins global adidas Originals account and prepares launch of Amsterdam atelier.

2009 _ Sid Lee opens a shop in Paris and is selected as one of the top 4 international agencies (Ad Age).

2010 _ Sid Lee now launches in Toronto, inaugurating a new office in the storied Historic Distillery District.

Sid Lee’s story from 1993 to today

I WAS THErE!



Here’s to us!

“ having Fun is Part oF their culture.”

you started doing Business With sid lee in 1997. can you tell us What tyPe oF Mandate it Was For? _ Well, my first pitch with Sid Lee was in 1996, for a pro-duct called Floc de Gascogne. The project never saw the light of day, but this initial contact was very interesting. At the time, their offices were on Saint-Paul Street and when you entered the buil-ding, you really felt a shift in dynamics. The presi-dent was referred to as the chief pump attendant. There was a Texaco gas pump at the reception, the front of a Mercedes sticking out of the wall in the conference room… It piqued people’s curiosity, and that’s why I went back to them. The first contract carried out was a Wines of France cam-paign in Ontario. We were looking for a firm with a global vision of Canada and not simply focused on Quebec, and Sid Lee had anglophones working in-house. The selected campaign was very strong, with nothing ordinary about it and with very deep black and white.

Then, starting in 2000, we were looking for worldwide solutions for Wines of France. We’re an international corporation based in Paris and we decided to create the interactive platform in Montréal. We entered via the Web and then crea-ted the graphic platform, the brand and the iden-tity in 23 languages. At the time, this was not a traditional approach. It was already one of Sid Lee’s strengths to have well understood the “com and .com” relationship and to have integrated these two.

you Weren’t aFraid oF Working With PeoPle Who didn’t have Much exPerience? _ What I saw in them

was their creative approach. They were a bunch of happily crazy folks with a lot of audacity, but also with a realistic look into the future. They are bold visionaries. Their international success is proof of that today. Sid Lee is an incubator for strategies and creativity. You walk in, then walk out completely enlightened.

is there a link BetWeen Wines oF France and the Par-ties that take Place at sid lee? _ Before working with them, they were already well known for their par-ties. I remember a memorable party they had or-ganized at Stereo. There were dancers behind a large white veil who were playing with fire and then, all of a sudden, the veil caught on fire. I got really scared and asked myself, “what kind of firm is this?”

Another anecdote about an intense moment with Sid Lee: we were at the kick-off party for Zumanity in Las Vegas, on the roof of the New York-New York hotel. Around 5 a.m., Bertrand Cesvet got me in a judo hold, just for fun. I flew right over him and fell flat on my back. He laughed, saying, “I just threw a client on his back, I just threw a client on his back!” It’s part of their culture to have fun—there’s no hierarchy in that culture.

Sid Lee enables individuals to express them-selves. There’s a structure, but it’s not a traditio-nal one. Individuals are respected for their exper-tise, regardless of their position. There is no notion of “top to bottom.” The communication channels are well respected.

Olivier Moreaux is President oF soPexa north aMerica.

- 23 -- 22 -

Blow up borders

Mix the unmixable

hoW did you guys Meet?J.-F.B. _ More than ten years ago, I had a meeting to show our portfo-lio to a company located deep in the Quebec countryside. When I got there, I realized that another im-portant beverage company was also headquartered in the same remote area. From its parking lot, I cold-cal-led Bertrand, who was heading mar-keting there. To my surprise, he im-mediately agreed to meet me. When I got to his office, he was in a mee-ting with several collaborators but interrupted everything to look at our work. I thought it was a real sign of interest on his part but I later found out that Bertrand cannot sit still in a meeting for more than 20 minutes. I was simply a welcome dis-traction in his usual chaotic meeting management!B.C. _ I did like your stuff, though. We ended up working together and we came to realize that we had a similar vision of the future.

What Was your vision at the tiMe?B.C. _ We believed that agencies did not get what was coming. In the ’60s and ’70s, agencies used to act as beacons to guide their clients into the future. We felt that this leader-ship advisory role had been lost over

the years. Therefore, our aim was quite simple: we wanted to anticipa-te and provoke change to be ahead of consumers and marketers instead of the omnipresent lagging that we observed in traditional agencies.J.-F.B. _ This was both very wise and completely naive! With our youth ful energy, we did not realize how much of an effort we would have to make to deliver on such a bold ambition. We had to take huge risks. Talking the talk is one thing, walking the walk is a different matter entirely.B.C. _ The matter was further com-plicated by the fact that most of us had never actually set foot in an agency! Plus, our clients were not exactly top-tier… When I joined, Jean-François and Philippe had as-sembled a motley crew of greasy spoon restaurants, plumbers and the like… Needless to say, we had a lot of account collection to do.J.-F.B. _ Those very humble begin-nings were very formative. We reali-zed rapidly that it was much easier to criticize what others did than to do better. The truth of the matter is that our work was not that good at the time. Other agencies proba-bly—and rightly so—had a good laugh at some of our attempts at reinventing the wheel! But the un-derlying thinking was sound and

NoBOunDaRIES

reJecting Borders BetWeen disciPlines and PeoPle.

Jean-François Bouchard is the President oF sid lee While Bertrand Cesvet is its chairMan, senior Partner. they ansWer a FeW questions aBout their Journey at sid lee and Where the coMPany is heading.

NO BOUNDArIESNO BOUNDArIES

- 25 -- 24 - - 25 -- 24 -

slowly brewing. Through good and bad times, we remained focused on the approach we had chosen… And we perfected it.

What Was this aPProach?J.-F.B. _ The first thing we realized very early on was that consumers think differently than agencies and many marketers do, even to this day… When is the last time that you, as a consumer, said, “oh, great piece of di-rect marketing” while opening an en-velope on your doorstep, or “this is clever interactive marketing” when visiting a website, or “nice direct-res-ponse 30-second ad” while watching TV? Consumers don’t think like that. To them, those are all interactions with a brand. They don’t categorize or compartmentalize like the indus-try does. Therefore, our core idea was to be customer-centric and embrace whatever means we had to in order to connect with consumers.J.-F.B. _ In 1995, we were amongst the first to truly embrace interactive, for example. In 2001, it almost killed us, but we refused to let go of the ex-pertise even when we were bleeding badly. We could have gone under but we knew that consumers were into the Web even if clients and financial markets were temporarily trying to get out of it! Today, it represents a staggering 50% of our staff.B.C. _ Two things have defined how we work today: a complete rejection of the traditional silos and bounda-ries between disciplines and a refu-sal of the advertising-centric model. It took us almost ten years to effecti-vely mix disciplines as varied as inte-ractive, architecture, industrial de-sign, advertising, design, and many more. Our strength lies in our ability

to put together teams of multidi-sciplinary talents led by strategists with a holistic vision. Most agencies today say they do that because it is in vogue but they do not have those 10 years of painstaking mista-kes and continuous improvements. Some clients have said to us, “others say the same thing as you do, but you have actually done it.” Needless to say, that’s music to our ears.

What is sid lee today?B.C. _ People have a hard time ca-tegorizing us. Evolved ad agency? Multidisciplinary design team? In-teractive Web developer? Creativity corporation? Innovation consultants? It is a bit complicated to box our company into a current field. But it is rather simple to explain what we do. Essentially, we do two things: we help clients conceive brand expe-riences and we market them. We strongly believe that companies must embed their products, services and spaces with more potent story-telling. What we are saying, in ef-fect, is that the product itself is part of the message and that communica-tion specialists should be instrumen-tal in crafting more meaningful ex-periences that consumers will want to make a part of the personal narra-tive to drive word-of-mouth. In a world of diminishing mass media ef-ficiency, this is becoming more im-portant than ever. The days of chur-ning out undifferentiated products and buying your way out of trouble with mass media are simply gone.

hoW do you do that?J.-F.B. _ To develop brand expe-riences, we leverage brand strategy, experiential marketing as well as ar-

chitectural and industrial design. When it comes to marketing pro-ducts and services, we assemble all of the communication skills: adver-tising, design, interactive, and expe-riential marketing to name but a few.

We define our services as commercial creativity. It is the best moni-ker we have found to describe what we do. Basically, our aim is to offer all forms of creativity that can help corporations attain commercial ob-jectives.

It is a departure from the current state of affairs. Right now, when corporations need business-related creativity, they go to separate firms for architecture, industrial design, branding or advertising. Some of those professionals are not versed in marketing and do not use the un-derstanding of consumers as the starting point of the process. The end result is incoherence in the brand experience. To be fair, I must admit some clients avoid such inco-herence by acting as the connecting glue between the parts – but that’s a tall order and it often fails.

hoW do you Manage such a diverse grouP oF talents?B.C. _ Our core competency is ma-naging diverse creative talents. We believe creativity is a team sport and we act accordingly. For each assign-ment, a team is assembled to fit the task at hand. The team is led by a strategist and creative director who act as generalists. Then, the required specialized talents are brought to-gheter. Therefore, a writer might be matched with a director, a multime-dia artist and an architect if the assi-gnment involves creating branded interactive projections in a ho tel,

for example. As many as 50 project teams can coexist since our 120 crea-tive professionals (out of a staff of 250) belong to a number of different teams, depending on their skills.

This way of working has allowed our clients to benefit from holistic thinking and to steer clear of ego-driven creative types. Jean-François once said to a very talented guy, “you are possibly one of the best players I have seen.” The young man was ob-viously flattered by the compliment and beaming at the thought of the beloved awards he felt he had won single-handedly that year. Then, Jean-François added, “the problem is you play golf and we happen to play hockey here.” Eventually, he quit.

What’s next For sid lee?J.-F.B. _ The company is becoming more and more multicultural and we now work in more than 12 cities around the world. We now have close to 20 languages spoken and we hire great people from all over the globe. It has already started to transform our culture. We need the simul ta-neous translation services when we do our agency-wide training sessions! I think we haven’t even begun to feel the impact of what I call “in terna-tionalization from within.” New ideas will f lourish, different sensibilities will impact our view of the world, and new ways of doing things will emerge. I think that’s fascinating.B.C. _ I think change is what’s in store for us. We have a quasi-obses-sive thirst for change. When things are going great for us and the sailing becomes smooth, we try new things. I hope we will challenge the status quo for as long as we exist.

NO BOUNDArIESNO BOUNDArIES

- 26 - - 27 -

SKYpE is the LImIT“sid lee Brings its oWn vision, Which is not dutch.”

Why choose aMsterdaM as the First Foreign oFFice?Harm _ There are three reasons, I think. The first reason is that the Montréal firm wanted to offer new opportunities for its talents, in order to keep them. We can offer them this experience here, at the other end of the globe. At the same time, Amsterdam has a large pool of tremendous talent, which makes creative exchanges between offices possible. The second reason is that Sid Lee already has clients in Europe, such as adidas and Cirque du Soleil. A local presence will therefore be very useful. The third reason is purely based on the meeting we had, on the feeling we shared. It has nothing to do with any development plan. What’s most surprising are the similarities between Quebec and Holland. We are used to dealing with very different cultures, such as between the Dutch and the Germans, or the French, all less than one hour away. But we feel very close to Quebeckers. We are two emerging countries, we are used to travelling, to setting up shop in foreign countries.Lukas _ As for me, I was very happy to be able to visit the family! But seriously, we had wanted to work together for years.

What Will your oFFices look like?Harm _ I don’t think it’s ever been done in the past. It’s an office but also a boutique, a gallery and a bistro. The district we’re located in is excep-tional. It’s called De Pijp (the pipe); it’s a sort of Latin district in Amsterdam. It was very popular 10 years ago and was mostly inhabited by im-

migrants and students. Over the last five years, it has become home to many artists and small busi-nesses. We’re the first international agency to set up shop here, with a very different approach. The spaces are very small, between 30 and 45 square meters. Our office will occupy 600 square meters, which is very rarely seen in this neighbourhood.Lukas _ In the centre are the boutique, the gal-lery and the bistro and our offices are all around. It’s an open space for everyone. We’ll be working in front of the public, which is very unusual. We’ll be able to brainstorm in the gallery while visitors read a magazine.

dutch design is aFraid oF no one. hoW does sid lee Plan on standing out?Niels _ Sid Lee brings its own vision, which is not Dutch. Yes, Amsterdam is a creative hub, but our offer is still completely unique. It is a combi-nation of disciplines on a level that is not standard practice here and that’s what makes the difference.

do you really Bike to Work?Harm _ I have two transportation modes. The first is a small boat, which I use to get to the office by way of the water canals and the other is my bike.Niels _ As for myself, I have three ways of get-ting around. The first is my bike, the second, when I’m late, is my race bike, and the third is a large bike with seats for my children.Lukas _ I must be the only Dutchman who hates bikes. My friends mock me, but I prefer my car. Maybe that’s why I live in Montréal!

skyPe intervieW With niels van de Walle, harM sas and lukas derksen. niels and harM Joined the ranks at sid lee in aMsterdaM tWo years aFter their dutch colleague, lukas, BecaMe a MeMBer oF the Montréal teaM, aFter having decided to Move in Pursuit oF a Pretty queBecker.

SkYPE IS THE LIMITSkYPE IS THE LIMIT

- 28 - - 29 -

Post-

IT(Each of his answers comes with a Post-it note

on which he sums up his explanation.)

What does coMMercial creativity Mean in your Work? _ Simple. I’ll draw it for you on a Post-it in just a sec. Commercial creativi ty is having ideas and bringing those ideas to consumers. Until recently, people in our industry just had to create ads, but now, clients have to come to us a lot earlier in the process. We jump in the game sooner and start by defining the idea behind the product or service. Then we de-sign the product, the packaging and the environment in which it will appear (such as the store it will be displayed in). Only then do we start work on the mass and interactive communications. The brand should always be pre-sented consistently, using a uni-que approach and the same kind of language every time. That way, the different specialists working on the project won’t each interpret the main idea differently. At Sid Lee, all the disciplines get involved, but they always tell just one story.

are all Brands ready to get on Board With you? _ They should be. Currently, the biggest pro-blem is that consumers are han-

ded messages that are very wate-red-down. Competition results in copycat products in the diffe-rent categories, and we lose the DNA of a brand. Too many si-gnals are sent. When you align all these signals, you help consu-mers understand the foundation of the brand.

As companies become in-creasingly global, they get co-pied, which makes it hard for consumers to understand their values. A company that’s done a great job is Apple. From their brochures to their interface, they always use the same font. From the design and the engineering to the stores and the ads, every-thing revolves around the same story. One of the worst examples are American car companies. They put 32 models on the mar-ket and each has a different in-tention. Consumers don’t know who they are dealing with any-more. Their cars don’t have much personality.

Why is MulticulturalisM iMPor-tant? _ For me, the creative group is like this enormous garden. We can plant a row of carrots next to a row of potatoes next to a row of turnips. Carrots will

Philippe Meunier is creative chieFand co-Founder oF sid lee.

POST-IT POST-IT

- 30 - - 31 -

always be carrots, but the smells of the different vegetables com-bine and the soil changes. Cultu-re is transmitted and new fla-vours are created. The fact that we have people from around the world at Sid Lee generates a new culture. We make a point of pu-tting these people together to invent something new. Without this multiculturalism, we would not produce the same quality work. It would be impossible.

Why do you have such Multidisci-Plinary teaMs? _ Multidisciplina-rity is directly linked to commercial creativity. It allows us to approach problems from diffe-rent angles. The typical adverti-sing trilogy — creative director, copywriter and art director — tends to always see issues from the same angle. When you work with an industrial designer, architect, historian or clown, you get radically different points of view. Classical communica-tion work always produces the same cake. Sometimes it’s a ba-nana cake, sometimes straw-berry or maple… If we’re lucky it’s choco late. But it’s always a cake. In our case, though, someone around the table will suddenly suggest making souff lé. Then everyone starts talking to each other, saying, “it looks like a cake, but it’s not a cake. It’s really good!” This is what brands need. This approach is a big plus. And the time is right for us to do this.

Where do you recruit eMPloyees? _ Like all good farmers, we first look to see what’s growing lo-cally. Montréal is chock-full of talent. We go to the creative schools at all the universities around here: UQAM, McGill,

Concordia. Then we combine these folks with staff from else-where. We’ve had a lot of people come up from the United States and France, due to the fact that it is easier to get them work visas. We looked at the best schools: Pasadena Art School in Los An-geles, Creative Circus in Atlan-ta, Miami Ad School, Rhode Is-land School of Design, Parsons, Portfolio Center. And since last year we’ve also done some scou-ting in Europe at École Natio-nale des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, Hyper Island School of Digital Media in Sweden and Konst-fackskolan. The Internet lets us view creative portfolios from around the world and is a huge help to our recruiting pro-cess. We like to seek out unk-nown “species” from the U.S. or Europe and try to cross-pollina-te them with our local “species” to get new types of creatives. It’s kind of like Ca lifornia wine. They use French grapes, but since their growing conditions are totally different, the Ameri-can vintners crossed their local grapes with the foreign ones — like alchemists — to make an all-new kind of wine. That’s what we’re doing here at Sid Lee.

What’s an atelier? _ It’s a new working approach for the crea-tive process at Sid Lee. French for “workshop,” an atelier is a place where ideas are born. It’s where we put things up, we draw, we ask questions. Our atelier space is about 60 square meters, with a maximum of 6 people sta-tioned there. Each individual has to bring a specialty to the project. There is a centre table that the different specialists sit around. Then we literally place

the problem in front of them and they try to solve it. The walls have charts and screens with wireless access. So it’s pri-marily a physical space inspired by the greats of the Renaissance who shared atelier spaces with their young apprentices. Eve-ryone participated, but the work was signed by the head of the workshop. After each project, we take down the atelier and put up another one. There’s always a beginning and an end. People are nomadic.

Our creative work has four phases. The first is planning. The leader of the creative atelier, the strategic planner and the ac-count director work together to delimit the territory, much like archaeologists do. If you go into the atelier during that phase, you’ll notice that the walls are covered with images of global developments in that category, as well as what’s being done in other industries. For the second step, which is creation, six mem-bers of the creative team are called in to pick through the ground for “rocks,” which repre-sent ideas. During that phase, we’re just down to paper and pencils. Then we choose the best “rock” and each specialist goes to work in their area of expertise. We push the idea and put together a presentation,

which is laid out on a long scroll. At that point, we invite the client to the atelier so they can come and see what we’ve done. Then, in the third phase, we bring in the computers and do the design. Finally, when eve-ryone agrees, we go into produc-tion. That’s how the rock is cut to become a diamond.

What’s the story Behind your Post-it sketches? _ It’s such a small and simple thing, and you can only write one thing on it. In com-munications, if someone is able to understand an idea on a Post-it, it’s a good idea. For me, it helps summarize my ideas, whether it’s a management issue or an ideation process. Once a year, I give everyone in the creative team a Post-it with a drawing or a word on it. It’s supposed to remind them of their goals. It’s simple, it’s clear, it’s sticky… It’s perfect!

“ cross-Pollinate our local sPecies to create neW tyPes oF creatives.”

POST-IT POST-IT



“ they’re over the toP. they have great ideas, But they’re all over the Place.”

Organizing CHaOS

What is your exact title at sid lee? _ I’m a jack-of-all-trades. At one point, Jean-François Bouchard had given me the title of omnipotent technician, as a joke. It’s a big name, but I feel more like a jack-of-all-trades. It’s what I do best.

What is your role? _ I take care of the order and the mess in the company, which is very well organized in terms of processes, but often chaotic where the workspace is concerned. For example, we had set up a temporary room for a large international project. There were 12 employees, who must’ve spoken 8 languages, all working in this room. I have no idea how they were able to understand each other! At first, everything was all neat and tidy, and then the chaos set in—holes in the walls, fruit thrown all over the place, pistachio shells, Smarties and orange peels on the floor. People were letting themselves go creatively, so I had no-thing to say, except that I had to make sure that they were happy and that the work was moving forward. But we still had to maintain some type of order, to keep them under control, or things could’ve gotten even worse.

Who is Messier, the creative staFF or the consulting staFF? _ The creative staff. They’re over the top, they have good ideas, but they’re all over the place, like Marie-Élaine Benoît, the art director. In her small space, she works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, I think. I always see her here when I come over during the evening and on weekends. Her desk is complete chaos, but there’s a personal order to it. I’ve never touched it, even though it’s the busiest desk in the entire company, and I’m very proud of her, because I believe it’s an organi-zed mess for her. She knows her way around it.

sid lee isn’t aFraid oF esPionage? _ If a box filled

with documents is lying around on the floor, we need to know if we have the right to throw it out, archive it or shred it. The information cannot be disseminated just anywhere. It has to be kept a bit of a secret. But I haven’t encountered any such in-cidents yet.

We’re in a sPecial sMall rooM right noW. could you Please exPlain Where We are? _ The famous Collec-tivo room. It looks like the crooked house at Bel-mont park, back in the day. It’s a small chaotic room with a door that’s too low and everything the creative staff needs to create to their heart’s content. The room, which was very nice at first, became an exceptional workroom, so I no longer take care of it, housekeeping-wise, because we like its messy look. There are crooked shelves, walls punctured with holes, splashes of paint… It’s kind of wild, but the creative staff appreciates it.

that Means the rest oF sid lee is too neat and tidy? _ No, the firm isn’t too neat and tidy. There’s always something stirring up somewhere. The people work hard and things never stop around here. They call it an atelier. I think it’s the right term for it, even if it means that I keep tidying the place up all the time!

i heard they Write Just aBout anyWhere… _ Yes, on the white boards, on the blackboard doors, on the windows… From time to time, we have to remove what’s written on the windows, so I’m the one who cleans them. But I always ask for permission before erasing anything, even if it’s been there for four or five months, just in case.

Who exactly is sid lee? _ A very cultivated teenager.Crafty, bursting with imagination and energy. Kind of like a delinquent graffiti artist. Yeah, that’s about right.

Ronald Tanguay is a Jack-oF-all-trades at sid lee.

- 34 - - 35 -INTErvIEWEr INTErvIEWEDINTErvIEWEr INTErvIEWED

In 2007, Laurent Lapierre, Ph.D. and holder of the Pierre-Péladeau leadership chair at HEC Montréal, did an interview with one of Sid Lee’s leaders. When it saw how in-depth and accurate the text was, the team realized that Laurent La-pierre and faithful sidekick Jacqueline Cardinal were peerless interviewers, because of their pas-sion for the ties between creativity and entre-preneurship. A seed was sown. What if the duo were to explain the company’s history and thin-king to new recruits?

What is the Book Who is sid lee? _ It’s a big iconic book, almost 150 pages long, that plunges the rea-der into the Sid Lee world. It is unique because there is only one copy of it and it’s kept under lock and key in a special room. The artisans who join Sid Lee read it over the first two days at the firm. It’s a bit of an initiation ritual.

Why did you agree to Write a Book that Would only have one coPy? _ We were particularly interested in the case of Sid Lee: it represents group leadership

made up of the combination of 15 firm partners, who shape Sid Lee into what they collectively want it to be. This aspect appealed to us, regar-dless of how many potential readers the book had. That said, they tell me it’s a best-seller at Sid Lee!

What struck you? _ Sid Lee seemed to be a new kind of organization. The leadership it displays as an organization does not come from a single lea-der who can mobilize his troops, as could be des-cribed in a traditional biography, nor is it the out-come of several stakeholders working in the same sector in different companies. Instead, it comes from coordinating individual leaderships that are exercised on an ad hoc basis by the creators and artisans in a single firm. That’s quite rare.

do you like Being intervieWed? _ Not at all. I like it the other way around!

Interviewer interviewed

Laurent Lapierre Ph.d.

a rookie iMMerses herselF in sid lee’s culture and thinking By reading Who is sid lee?

- 37 -- 36 - - 37 -37 -37- 36 -GrOWING fAMILYGrOWING fAMILY

Martin, George, Pétula and Karim pose for Montréal photographer Carl Lessard

to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Sid Lee’s successful marriage of technology

and communications.

Growing family

“Make it Work!”

Martin Gauthier is a vice President and senior Partner.

George Giampuranis is creative director and Partner.

Pétula Bouchard coo, Partner

Karim Kendjouh is vice President technology and innovation and Partner.

- 39 -- 38 - - 39 -- 38 -GrOWING fAMILYGrOWING fAMILY

in 1999, your coMPany, stratégo, Which sPecialized in interactive coMMunications, Merged With sid lee. Was it a Marriage oF conve-nience or love?Martin _ Both. We were dis-cussing to get together with another company that wanted to buy Stratégo, purely for finan-cial reasons. At the time, com-panies in this field were too ex-pensive. They were overvalued, but people wanted to invest. Sid Lee had more appeal for us be-cause we had been working to-gether since 1998 — their argu-ments were all about passion. But the reality was they needed cash. So they went to seek fun-ding from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. This made a marriage of convenience and love a possibility. But wi-thout the passion, we would have looked elsewhere. Pétula _ Sid Lee has not made any acquisitions since then. We realized how lucky we were that the marriage works! That’s very unusual and very precious. Wi-thout our passion and shared values, I don’t think it would have worked. All of Stratégo’s leaders are still totally involved in the Sid Lee family, in one way or another.

is “coM and .coM” Making For great kids?Karim _ That was the name we gave our approach: a blend of mass media and interactive com-munications: “com and .com.” To achieve this, we needed a pro-cess, just like infertile couples need regular treatments if they want to have kids! In the begin-ning, it didn’t feel natural. It was totally dichotomous.

Martin _ Every cell of the com and .com child had to be put toge ther using test tube technology. George _ Yes, and then sudden-ly, out of nowhere, we end up getting natural results. You know, some couples struggle without getting anywhere, then when they back off a bit, bang! It works. Now, we blend the mass media and interactive universes without a second thought.Martin _ It took a lot of ag-gressive therapy. It took years before we were able to succeed in creating our first baby. Now, Sid Lee is one of the only organi-zations in Canada – or even the world – that has a completely hybrid culture: 50% of our people come from digital and 50% from mass media sectors. Karim _ We really have people in both fields who work natu-rally, in an inspiring way. The project leads are at ease in both areas: interactive and mass media.

the ProJects sid lee Puts out, do they reseMBle their creative dad or technological MoM?Martin _ If the technology is more transparent, that means the creativity component in-creases. We tell our teams, “make it work!” It’s a big challenge for us, for programmers, for the pro-duction team. George _ We always start with a creative idea. We never begin with a technological concept.

Who is the neW generation?Martin _ We have people who come here, between 19 and 21 years old, who’ve always lived with video games and compu-ters. Whether they work as

creative types, in consulting or in architecture, they already have all the key concepts. They even challenge us. They were born with a video game control-ler in their hands. Just think, be-fore, we had to train employees on PowerPoint or explain how to use a browser!Karim _ Web 2.0 is essential. Blogs, community, participa-tion… it’s a given.

the Worst MeMory oF your Mar-riage?Martin _ Black Friday in 2001, total “.com” crisis, we had to lay off about 50 people. The situa-tion drove us to this divorce. We didn’t want to do it. We loved our employees. We’d created a beautiful family. Having to break it up was agonizing. Karim _ A few days later, Martin came to see me, saying, “Karim, there are no more inte-ractives!” It was an incredible shock. Then we bounced back. Pétula _ Let’s just say that my human resources baptism by fire almost burned me alive!

What are you Most Proud oF?Karim _ Having joined Sid Lee just out of curiosity and look at me now. I’ve come a long way, achieved all of these successes.Martin _ I’m really proud of our communications, with the partners and with the employees. Just like a couple, that’s what gets you through the rough spots.

NOM DE LA SECTION NOM DE LA SECTIONNOM DE LA SECTION NOM DE LA SECTION- 41 -- 40 -

Jean Pelland and Martin Leblanc are associate architects at sid lee architecture.

What are your roles at sid lee architecture? _ We are both as-sociate architects in the firm—we kind of sit at the head of the locomotive that is Sid Lee Archi-tecture!

What is your vision For sid lee architecture? _ We’re looking to create an all-encompassing firm with Sid Lee Architecture, and this vision depends on ideas and input from different disci-plines that converge toward the architectural core. We see our discipline as an art form in itself, but we believe architecture should remain in the service of people and not the other way around. This approach has pro-pelled us to create experiences that are immersed in and around the user. We are also concerned with architecture as a communi-cation tool, because we feel that in order to serve and benefit people, we must communicate our ideas and experiences.

Why did you choose to Partner With sid lee? _ Because Sid Lee is a creative agency, and one of its strongest assets is its ability to communicate that creativity. Over the years, we have always

favoured an approach that brings together multidisciplinary pro-fessionals from various fields of expertise. This kind of approach stems from a desire to create nar-rative, rather than sculptural, ar-chitecture.

hoW do you see architecture to-day? _ Architecture has always been held in high regard, but it is changing right now as it tries to be contemporary while maintai-ning its traditional benchmark. Architecture is looking for an identity and a purpose. It is also seeking humanity and real hu-man contact. Our firm is looking more and more to communi-cate—to find places and ways to communicate—and we try to ful-fill this through architecture.

Which Buildings in Montréal ins-Pire you? _ Any building that embodies a shift or progression, like the Orange Tulip, Habitat 67 or Silo No. 5. We are much more inspired by a building with a strong, unique identity than sim-ply aesthetic beauty.

Why do you alWays dress in Black? _ We’re dressed in black?

DID YOU SAY MULTIDISCIPLINArITY?DID YOU SAY MULTIDISCIPLINArITY?

sid leeArchitecture: architects

noMad

- 42 - - 43 -- 42 - - 43 -- 43 -- 42 -SID LEE IN PArIS SID LEE IN PArIS

sid leein Paris :

a startuP Where Working Feels good

hoW does a “tagger” BecoMe creative director? _ By chance. I’ve always loved art. Before, I would express myself through “tags,” which are a form of graffiti. Then I discovered graphic arts. I took some classes before landing in advertising. I worked for several agencies. Each time, I was the one to up and leave. I had a thing for quitting jobs (laughs). Last year, I left DDB Paris to take a break and think about what I really wanted to do.

Why did you choose sid lee? _ Because Sid Lee seemed to have its head on straight. I was sick of working at soulless agencies. I really wanted a change. Sid Lee was a revelation of sorts. I emailed Jean-François Bouchard, president of Sid Lee, to tell him I was interested in meeting him. It just felt right.

What do you think sets sid lee aPart FroM other agencies in Paris? _ Eve-rything! Sid Lee is very different from other agencies because it really is a one-stop shop. A lot of agencies claim this, but few of them actually are. I can’t think of another agency that provides architecture services. Nor a research and development department like Sid Lee Collective. Plus, French agencies don’t have international clients—they work for the French division of the larger company.

What’s your role in Paris? _ I do a bit of everything. I manage the office, which means I take care of the clients, administration…and plumbing! (laughs)! We’re only 10 employees who just finished setting up shop, so everyone has to pitch in.

What’s your vision For sid lee Paris? _ I want to position Sid Lee as a very “human” agency. Even if we’re just a little startup where everyone works their butts off, I want the atmosphere here to be pleasant. I want to respect the fact that my employees have a life outside of the office. I want to stay true to the Sid Lee model created in Montréal.

Sylvain Thirache is the director oF sid lee in Paris

sid lee à Toronto :an oFFice next door

What Was your role at sid lee BeFore Being naMed general Manager oF the neW toronto oFFice? _ I’m a partner at Sid Lee. I’ve been with the agency for over 11 years now and have 16 years of national and inter-national experience. I manage teams for different accounts. I oversee the quality of my teams’ work and offer support, from strategy to creative.

What do you think sets sid lee aPart FroM other agencies in toronto?_ We chose to set up shop in the Distillery District, an iconic, non-traditional part of the city. We’re surrounded by boutiques, artisans, small restaurants, but not by other agencies. We’re inspired by raw creativity, and it’s everywhere here (in ideas, environments, people…). It’s right on par with our philosophy and our mission as a commercial creativity firm.

What is your vision For sid lee toronto? _ We’d like for our agency to be inspired by the local culture, by the diversity here, all the while keeping an international and North American perspective. This applies as much to the standards of our work as it does to the clients we take on and the people we employ. We look for creatives who are super-passionate and talented, regardless of where they’re from. This multiculturalism brings a lot of interesting perspectives to the table.

you noW call toronto hoMe. any cool discoveries?_ Toronto is very multicultural, with every culture out there represented. I have a lot of fun exploring the city. I’ve discovered Italian grocery stores where you can buy stuff you won’t find anywhere else. The other day, I bought agnelli siciliani pasta, like my mother used to make. Talk about a trip back in time!

do you ever go to niagara Falls? _ Not since tying the knot!

Vito Piazza is Managing director oF sid lee in toronto and Partner



Where are you right noW? What are you doing? _ I’m in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, at the adidas head office. It’s a small city in the middle of the countryside. I’m here for three mandates: a content project, a brand follow-up and a review of their brand architecture.

Where are you FroM? What did you do BeFore Joining sid lee? _ I’m from Montréal. When I did my mas-ter’s at HEC, I was paired with a Belgian guy who had a lot of offers in Europe, so I sent my resume to London. But since I was still a few months away from completing my thesis, I wanted a summer job first. So, I met with François Lacoursière from Sid Lee and I started my internship.

What’s your Present role? _ I supervise the strate-gists and I work closely with our clients. Basically, I’m here to think!

What does a young strategist FroM Montréal have to oFFer on the international scene? _ I offer what people often tell me: “you look European, but

you sound American.” Montréal is halfway between two cultures. We’ve got European va-lues and American practicality.

What countries do you Work in? _ Germany, the U.S., England and Holland, mainly.

What’s your Favourite hotel in london? _ Even though it’s a bit of a cliché, I like St. Martin’s Lane, which was designed by Starck. It’s gorgeous.

What’s your Most trauMatic Business triP MoMent? _ Getting off a plane in a wheelchair.

What’s your Favourite Business triP MoMent? _ We were working on a new Brazilian concept for MGM Mirage in Las Vegas, so I got to go to Rio de Janeiro to see, understand and explore the es-sence of their culture.

in terMs oF the MulticulturalisM at sid lee, What does it Mean? _ The senior partners at Sid Lee are very Québécois and thus Sid Lee is really a Montréal company. But what I admire at this agency is its international vision. For the last 18 months, all the meetings have been held in English, since there always seems to be an American, British, Dutch, Indonesian or Chinese person at the ta-

ble. I find that really positive. We’re hiring more and more people from abroad.

Why do you travel so Much in the age oF the internet? _The Internet allows us to establish contacts all over and to keep in touch with our clients. But we still need face-to-face meetings. Human contact is always important, especially during the critical stages of a project or on key dates. Technology has its limits.

Where do you go on vacation? do you go see your Mother? _ No, I go to China, to Vietnam… These are completely different experiences. My last trip was to Croatia.

you have enough Points For all that travel? _ Well, I collected 120,000 points last year. That helped.

Alex Pasinihas Been Working at sid lee For seven years.

In the modern economy we evolve in, our teams travel the world to meet with clients, collabora-tors, and suppliers. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have such opportunities to discover new cultures and be exposed to so many diffe-rent ways of doing things. It is also a bit of a vir-tuous circle: the more you interact with other cultures, the more you become relevant as a glo-bal creative partner, and the easier it becomes to hire people from all over. We now have people from 20 different nationalities that speak al-most as many languages… Meet some of our “mile high” colleagues.

Creativenomads



Where are you right noW? _ We had a meeting in Macau, so we decided to make a short stop in Australia, because the Dralion show is opening there soon.

you coMe FroM Beauce, an agricultural region in que-Bec. do you Miss the FaMily FarM? _ Not really, but I like to go back and connect with things that are real. I like to contemplate my father’s fields, which stretch as far as the eye can see. It really helps me in my work to know that my little village is there. When I was growing up, my parents always taught me to make do with whatever was available. These practical values keep me grounded.

do you Work For cirque du soleil only? _ Yes. Exclusi-vely for the last five years.

hoW can you ProMote a shoW in las vegas or Macau iF you’re FroM queBec? _ Every time we launch a new show, there are different market factors to consider, a new culture to understand and absorb. In China, Cirque du Soleil is not very well-known,

Julie Provençal Works on the cirque du soleil Mandate.

whereas in New York, where we launched Win-tuk, the public already knew who we were. Sid Lee is able to bring an open mind and an excellent understanding of the Cirque brand to the table. We adapt each time, but not too much. We’re able to do so while respecting our client and their new market. You have to strike the right balance.

hoW Many countries is cirque du soleil in? _ In the next few months, Cirque du Soleil will have shows in 26 cities in North America, as well as Germany, England, Australia, China, Belgium, Austria, Korea, Spain, Japan, Taiwan and Swit-zerland.

hoW Many airline Points have you collected in the last year? _ 40,000. It’s great!

What Business triP MoMent aFFected you the Most? _ Tokyo will always be the most powerful. Cultu-rally, seeing the way the Japanese work to prepare for a launch — it’s so different from the way we do it. Everything needs to be documented, outlined, organized. It’s a huge challenge and an incredible experience at the same time. It’s not something a tourist would ever see.

hoW does Montréal Figure in all this? _ We’re really

lucky to have a microcosm of each country in Montréal. Because we have open minds and a sense of well-being, we’re comfortable no matter where we are. With Montréal as our base, it’s easy to get around everywhere else.

your Favourite Place in vegas? _ In the “O” theatre, during the show.

- 51 -- 50 - - 51 -ArE YOUr PALMS SWEATY?ArE YOUr PALMS SWEATY?

What does a strategist do all day? _ Try to under-stand things. Things in general. Situations our clients are in. Understanding their clientele and the rela-tionship between the two. I do a lot of listening, then I try to link the bits and pieces together.

so, it’s Pretty cereBral? _ Yes, but I also like to ask practical and concrete questions. You have to be able to think abstractly, but you also have to be able to come back down to earth.

you like it When your clients get sWeaty PalMs. What’s that all aBout? _ It’s a way of saying that we should always try to do things that have never been done before. When you do something for the first time, you can either be comfortable, uncomfortable, or panicking. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably not doing something that’s really new and you won’t have new results. The sweaty palms thing is a way of illustrating the fact that you have to do something different — responsibly, with calcula-ted risks.

does the sWeaty PalMs aPProach scare your clients? _ Not at all. It reassures them, which is a sign that the uncomfortable zone has wide enough mar-gins. If clients can keep one foot rooted in their comfort zone, they won’t fall into the panic zone.

in case oF Panic, What’s the Best strategy? _ The first thing you have to do is determine why the client is panicking. You have to “recontextualize” and try to understand why the decisions they were

are Your palms

Sweaty ?

François Lacoursière is vice-President and senior Partner at sid lee.

- 53 -- 52 - - 53 -- 52 -ArE YOUr PALMS SWEATY?ArE YOUr PALMS SWEATY?

comfortable with up until that point are suddenly making them panic. Often, the situation hasn’t changed, but their relationship with it has. You have to isolate the problem. Was the panic caused by a concrete fact or a perception?

do you reassure your clients in those situations? _ Our job is to help our clients live with a certain level of doubt and make them feel confident that they have chosen one of the best ways to achieve their goals — even if there are some risks invol-ved. Because today, doing nothing is a lot riskier than taking risks.

since you caMe to the coMPany in 1999, sid lee has chan-ged radically. hoW? _ What we do today is nothing like what we did in 1999. Back then, we were talk-ing about interactive (and had been for a while), but now we also look at things like interior des-ign, architecture, industrial design, interactive and installations. And yet, our role is still the same. Companies have business objectives and clients, and we want to reach their customers with various stimuli. These stimuli used to be advertising communications. Today, they could include a physical space or a product. You have to remember that the relationship with commercial stimuli has changed, too.

do you aPPly the sWeaty PalMs strategy to sid lee? _ Absolutely. I apply it to myself, to Sid Lee and to my clients. Our agency has undergone countless trans-formations and none were achieved without risks.

all sPecies have to adaPt in order to survive. consu-Mers change very quickly. do strategists essentially have to Mutate to keeP uP? _ We have to invest in research and development. For example, every-thing we do at Sid Lee Collective is research and development. We do it to gain a better understand-ing of how certain production processes work, how certain products are built and presented, and what the reactions are. We also do it for our-selves. In terms of physical space, we started with our offices in Montréal. We also try out interac-tive ideas on our sites. We take risks in the way we present our agency.

hoW Far do you think you can go in reinventing your-selF? _ It’s never-ending. The young people co-ming to Sid Lee have a starting point that is simi-lar to the place we arrived at after so many years. It’s like Sid Lee is a bridge: by the time you fin ish painting the far side, the first part needs painting again and you have to start over. While some peo-ple may be resistant to change, we thrive on it!

you have a Finger in every Pie, in several diFFerent Fields. you’re alWays changing. isn’t that dange-rous? _ Absolutely not. In the past, being versatile was equated with being superficial and people preferred specialists. Nowadays, though, the cy-cles are much shorter: the products, the types of media, the values… these change overnight. Being able to work in many fields is key, as is being comfortable with change and the unknown.

But you still need sPecialists: Flash develoPers, coPy-Writers, etc. _ Yes, but not too many at once. If we have to hire a lot of specialists for a multidiscipli-nary project, we lose agility. It waters down peo-ples’ sense of ownership on the project. We lose control. When you’ve got different specialists, each sitting in their respective corners, none of them will carry the project to term with as much intensity. Everyone has to be working with the same idea in mind and there should be only a subtle nuance for each domain. Today, peoples’ areas of expertise are increasingly mixed, and we work with each other more. We’re getting closer in that sense. If you are able to work in several common areas, work gets done more effectively.

are coMMunication strategists essentially Frus-trated creatives? _ The assumption behind that question is that the only way to be creative is doing pure concept development. And that’s a li-miting view. We’re all born with creative abilities that we have to express. When we mixed every-one together at Sid Lee, we really started some-thing new. We put all the disciplines together. This collective process, with all the different back grounds coming together, helped set our imaginations free.

iF that’s the case, isn’t strategy a grouP eFFort? _ Yes. There are always strategic decisions in the process. Whether we’re looking at the budget or a change in production, there are strategic choices to make. A change in the deadline is a strategic choice. We’re always making strategic choices. And we always put creativity at the forefront.

nice conclusion.(Laughing)

“ doing nothing is a lot riskier than taking risks.”

- 55 -- 54 -SEx WILL GET YOU ANYWHErESEx WILL GET YOU ANYWHErE

Sex will get you

anywhere

“ the Way PeoPle act in Bed is hoW they act in their lives.”

What is a sexologist doing at sid lee? _ I did my bache-lor’s and then master’s in sexology. Then I went back to La Pocatière, where I’m from, to work in my field. Two years later, I was missing the city. I came back to Montréal and took some courses in IT management. A friend, Martin Gauthier, hired me for his company, Stratégo, to handle accounting and human resources. In 1999, we merged with Sid Lee, but I kept on doing counsel-ling in sexology in the evenings, until five years ago.

is there a connection BetWeen your educational Back-ground and your current Work? _ They are not so far apart. In counselling, we appraise, we listen and we help. That’s what I do at Sid Lee. I apprai-se skills during interviews. I see whether there’s a cultural fit. Then I listen and help them profession-ally. In therapy, it’s longer, more personal. In an interview, I can quickly become close to people.

What is the key hiring criterion at sid lee? _ Bertrand Cesvet names three important values at Sid Lee: humanity, humility and doubt. I agree with him, and I’d add one more: generosity. I’m first and fore most looking for human values. You can ac-quire skills, but a personality is harder to work on. It’s like a couple: when you have the same va-lues, it works well.

What aBout aBroad? hoW are you recruiting interna-tionally? _ We travel a lot, go to the schools. With Skype, it’s easy to see people. In communication, what is said represents only 7%. Non-verbal com-munication accounts for 67% while tone of voice is 25%. When we’re almost certain, we have peo-ple come in to check out the agency. We choose them, but they have to choose us, too. It’s not just one-way—that wouldn’t work.

For keePing your talent, What assets does sid lee have? _ To keep a firm dynamic and strong, people have to want to stay. Everyone can provide that. By respecting them, stimulating them, giving them the space they need, that’s how we keep them. If someone wants to leave, we can’t force them to stay—that generates bad energy.

We often say that we want to manage human beings, not human resources. I think people see the difference.

lastly, do creative tyPes have a sPeciFic kind oF sexua-lity? _ The way people act in bed is how they act in their lives. If you eat spaghetti with tomato sauce and big meatballs five times a week, don’t expect your mattress to catch fire! If we’re creative in life, we explore, take risks, we’ll be the same with our sexuality. You can’t have a boring sex life if your life is exciting, that’s for sure. So I’m not worried about the creative types. (Laughing).

Pétula Bouchard is coo and Partner at sid lee.

NOM DE LA SECTION- 57 -- 56 -

D.F. _ Is this going to be brutal?Cop _ Heh, heh… Full name and profession?D.F. _ Fortier, Daniel, VP Finan-ce at Sid Lee.

Cop _ Hmm… VP Finance, what exactly does that mean?D.F. _ It means that, among other things, I manage the com-pany’s finances, operational pro-cedures and budgets. Also, I’m often asked for my opinion on investment projects. And since there’s a lot of that going on at Sid Lee, I’m kept pretty busy these days.

Cop _ Who do you work for?D.F. _ Sid Lee.

Cop _ Who is Sid Lee?D.F. _ It’s… It’s the agency that…

Cop _ Who owns this agency? Who’s your boss?D.F. _ It’s a lot of people… About fifteen people. Five or six senior partners and a bunch of others.

Cop _ Five or six senior partners?D.F. _ I’d say… six.

Cop _ Err… It doesn’t look good if the VP of Finance doesn’t know exactly how many senior partners there are. Are you one of these partners? D.F. _ Yes, yes.

Cop _ So, you work for yourself! D.F. _ That too, but it’s not the first time. I had a few com-panies before this. Believe it or not, I started as a graphic des-igner. Admittedly, I do a better job with numbers than with paintbrushes… but I like crea-tive people!

Cop _ What do you do diffe-rently than other agencies? D.F. _ We really look ahead to see what’s coming next. We do a good amount of planning. If you come visit us, you’ll probably just see the creative exuberance in the air, but in the shadows, there’s actually quite a bit of structure behind the apparent jumble of ideas. I keep the brain-iacs in line.

Cop _ What can you tell us about your acclaimed propriet ary ma-nagement system? D.F. _ It’s a project and finan-cial management system that we developed over the years. We made it ourselves because the existing systems didn’t effecti-vely support our business model, which is very different from the classical advertising-driven ap-proaches. The se days, we use the system to draw a lot of stats. Project managers have access to numbers in real time for all our projects. They can see what’s

MANAGEr IN fOr qUESTIONNING

Manager in for questionning

“We take the lead, We lay our cards out on the taBle.”

Daniel Fortier is director oF Financial oPerations, senior Partner.

NOM DE LA SECTION- 58 - - 59 -

MANAGEr IN fOr qUESTIONNING

working well, what’s working not so well, etc. And clients can see what’s happening with their assignments, globally or project-by-project.

Cop _ How is your management style unique in this multidisci-plinary environment? D.F. _ We built this system so that we wouldn’t have to manage each discipline differently. The tool is simple. It allows us to keep tabs on all activities, from ad-vertising to technology to inte-rior design, and so on. That’s the main advantage to our approach: it manages multidisciplinary pro-jects. We’ve even been asked if we’d sell the system, but we want to keep it just for us.

Cop _ Who’s Rudolf?D.F. _ The first name of the guy who invented the Diesel engine. It’s the name of our ma-chine, our management system.

Cop _ What does transparency mean to you?D.F. _ In our management ap-proach, we prefer to say what needs to be said. We take the lead, we lay our cards out on the table. Everyone appreciates it.

Cop _ What did you do to be named one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies?D.F. _ Ernst & Young and the National Post awarded us this title at a national competition. It’s a little ironic, because we had some major management problems the following year! We were hurt by the .com crisis in 2000. I sprouted my first grey hairs that year, but I also lear-ned some important lessons that are still relevant today.

Cop _ According to our files, you’ve had no lawsuits in 15 years. How do you explain that? D.F. _ Oh, boy… I think it’s be-cause we take the time to talk to our clients and our suppliers. That’s our strength. We go and chat. We try to find the source of the problems, and we try to keep these to a minimum. We’re also a little lucky.

Cop _ The president of your company studied Law. Do you think there’s a link?D.F. _ Hmph. Given all the years that have passed, I think his abilities as a lawyer are close to nil. In fact, before becoming a creative, he worked at a big firm and even they didn’t want him after a while! I don’t even think he could find a job appeal-ing parking tickets. One thing’s for sure: there’s no way he would wear a lawyer’s gown.

Cop _ Who’s Plato?D.F. _ Yikes! Plato is the guy who’s been programming our Rudolf database for the last 15 years. He’s been around since Sid Lee’s beginnings. He made versions 1.0 all the way up to 4 and higher. We’ve made a lot of improvements to the platform in the last five years.

Cop _ People call you “The In-visible Hand.” D.F. _ That’s all right. I like it. I feel like God. Everywhere and yet invisible.

Cop _ Full name and profession?D.F. _ Fortier, Daniel, VP Fi-nance at Sid Lee.

- 60 -

hoW does the sid lee kitchen Work? _ It starts with a free breakfast. There are 15 kinds of bread, 10 kinds of cereal… It’s all-you-can-eat. Breakfast is the first gathering of the day. Then we move onto lunch. An average of 150 of the 400 staff members eat lunch together. And soon the kitchen will be open at night, too. People will be able to eat dinner there or take it to go. We’re open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

does BreakFast get PeoPle into the oFFice earlier? _ Yes and no. There

are two different groups: the early-risers and those who get there at the last minute, around 9:30 a.m.

and What haPPens BetWeen Meals? _ We prepare surprises, like after-noon snacks. We’re a big family. Seeing 300 cookies disappear in three minutes — that’s some-thing! We put the cookies out, then take cover. It’s a cookie-monster combat zone!

What’s your Favourite thing to cook? _ Anything that’s fresh and seasonal. I draw inspiration from the best ingredients available at any given time.

do designers tend to Be vegetarians or carnivores? _ Carnivores! But we also have a handful of vege-tarians that we make alter-natives for. We know our em-ployees well. Today we served pork roast, so we had something else for Jews and Muslims. Eve-ryone is happy.

What dishes do PeoPle crave du-ring cold queBec Winters? _ Slow-cooked dishes, like meat and bean stew, veal blanquette, beef flank… The kind of thing you’d find in a regular bistro. In the sum-mer, the meals are a lot lighter.

hoW Many kilos oF coFFee do you go through every Morning? _ Twen-ty litres of regular coffee. Plus two kilos of ground espresso beans for our big Wega indus-trial machine. It scares employees

a bit, but they use it anyway. In no time they become experts. It’s the drug of choice here. But all the beans are fair-trade.

What does sid lee do to the Waist-line? _ It’s not my fault! I don’t force them to eat every last bite! But many do gain weight. A lot of employees eat all three of their meals here, five days a week. About 80% of the pro-ducts we use are local and orga-nic. We make a point of limiting junk: we only serve hamburgers about once every six months (though, when we do, people go nuts for them). We regularly or-ganize wine and cheese events to get people to unwind. The next day we tend to serve she-pherd’s pie, Québécois-style, with a layer of sweet corn.

hoW green are you? _ We use bio-degradable cleaning products, and the take-out containers are re-cyclable. Our kitchen is 95% green.

so Basically, sid lee’s Main draW is its kitchen. _ Let’s just say that some of our partners and sup-pliers are pretty envious.

What organ is the kitchen in sid lee’s Body? _ Head and heart, both. It helps give you good ideas, it helps keep you function-ing properly, it helps you feel good and stay alert. A creative mind in a healthy body.

gianMarco colannino is the cheF at sid lee.

he serves uP haPPiness in the Bistro.

Lunch is served

!

“ Seeing

300 cookies disappear in three minutes

– that’s

something! ”

LUNCH IS SErvED!


contact inForMation

Ateliers: Montreal 75 Queen Street, Suite 1400 Montreal, Quebec H3C 2N6 Canada Phone: +1 514-282-2200

Amsterdam Gerard Doustraat 72 1072 VV Amsterdam The Netherlands Phone: +31 (0) 206 623030 Paris 12 rue du Sentier 75 002 Paris France Phone: +33 (1) 44 88 83 90 Toronto 55 Mill Street Building 5, Suite 500 Toronto, Ontario M5A 3C4 Canada Phone: +1 416-421-4200 Austin Suite D-102 3601 South Congress Austin, Texas 78704 United States Phone: +1 512-444-3533

Websites: sidlee.com sidleearchitecture.com jimmylee.tv

Sid Lee is a member of Montréal.ad.

sid lee Wants to thank

Writer André Marois for his work on all of the articles of this fanzine and photographer Roger Proulx for his versatility.

Special thanks to the security guard at 75 Queen Street.

Ano

ther

fan

zine

THE SID LEE STORY

Business

Transcript of THE SID LEE STORY