When it comes to the notion of what constitutes a typical advertising agency, Sid Lee is working without a net.
That point was driven home again Thursday, when the Montreal-based company announced that it has formed a new joint venture partnership with Cirque du Soleil called Sid Lee Entertainment.
The venture further adds to Sid Lee’s broad – and “advertising” atypical – skill set, which has grown to include architecture, retail design, publishing and content creation.
Sid Lee Entertainment will develop and implement what it described as “unique entertainment platforms” for advertisers, enabling consumers to “live an experience” that reflects a brand’s attributes.
Speaking with Marketing from Cannes, where Sid Lee Entertainment was formally introduced, Sid Lee chairman Bertrand Cesvet said that Red Bull is the poster child for the type of daring, innovative projects they hope to pull off.
“What they’re doing is creating their own entertainment property – they invented it, they control it, people interact with Red Bull and live a very intimate and immersive connection with the brand,” said Cesvets.
Red Bull’s properties, such as “Crashed Ice,” the “Red Bull DJ Battle” and Felix Baumgartner’s famed freefall from deep space, are “best-in-class,” said Cesvet. “Felix Baumgartner to me is the most brilliant stunt – these guys have basically hijacked the space program.”
Such endeavours go far beyond mere marketing, said Cesvet, feeding into Red Bull’s content channels and even creating a new revenue stream.
“I think there’s a massive opportunity for progressive brands around the world to create entertainment properties as revenue streams,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is very ambitious.”
While acknowledging that such ventures will require both client buy-in and, more importantly, financial commitment, Cesvet said he sees “massive appetite” for these types of programs.
“I was talking to one of the top executives at Coca-Cola, [which has gone into] a market like Brazil and started its own TV and radio station and is selling tens of millions of dollars worth of clothing,” he said. “Brands are looking at different ways of interacting with their consumers, and if you look at the big progressive marketers around the world, this is what they’re looking for.”
Cesvet said that Sid Lee’s vision of the intersection of brands and content played a key role in Sid Lee winning the global Absolut Vodka business last fall. “The entry point on Absolut was not ‘TBWA’s advertising is not good,’ the entry point was the ask from the client about engaging with millennial consumers.
“When you answer ‘Entertaining stuff’ it’s a pretty good starting point,” said Cesvet. “I’m not saying that’s going to be easy, it’s fascinating because we have to develop new disciplines.”
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The partnership that ultimately resulted in Sid Lee Entertainment began when Sid Lee landed Cirque as a client in 2002. To paraphrase the famous Remington commercial, Cirque liked Sid Lee’s product so much they bought (part of) the company.
In February 2012, Cirque purchased what was described as a “significant minority equity stake” in Sid Lee, with the companies stating at the time that the deal would enable them to “mesh the combined talents of both Quebec organizations in order to nurture innovative projects for the benefit of their respective clients and partners.”
What began as a standard client-agency relationship morphed into something far deeper, as the two companies came to realize that they shared not only a similar world-view, but also a keen desire to drive what Cesvet called “transformative” change.
Cesvet remembers the industry skepticism that greeted the announcement.
“When they saw the transaction, people did not understand,” said Cesvet. “I got feedback from people saying ‘What, a client investing in an agency?’ People did not realize that there is a pretty large intersection between what Cirque does and what we do.”
Sid Lee was already seeing the growing consumer appetite for experiential-type marketing.
“If you take [Cirque du Soleil’s] competencies and try to create immersive, large-scale, ambitious consumer experiences, there’s a massive opportunity,” he said. “It’s pretty neat for us because I think that a lot of people want to tap into the creativity of Cirque, but they don’t know how.”
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The alliance between Sid Lee and Cirque represents a chance to do something truly special for daring brands, said Cesvet.
“It’s a match made in heaven, because we’re tapping into something massive that is in great demand, and on top of that it’s very singular for Sid Lee as a business model,” said Cesvet. “We’ve done many things over the years, but I think the most unique thing we’ve done is creating a very unique business.
“When you layer in the ability to do entertainment at a very high production level, it creates a very sticky business model. The big [holding companies] can probably assemble a lot of the skills we have from a portfolio point of view, but Cirque is so unique in what it does.”
Joanne Fillion, formerly Cirque du Soleil’s creative director, and a brand director for more than 10 years, will head the new venture as executive producer. Sid Lee Entertainment will operate from offices in Montreal, Amsterdam, Paris, Toronto and New York.
It will be constructing its first projects for Absolut Vodka and the fashion brand Lolé in the coming months.
