If ever the military or an evil genius aimed to build a Hipster Detonator, they’d be well advised to enlist the services of our 2010 Agency of the Year. See, in advance of the World Cup, Sid Lee created a two-minute video that combined Snoop Dogg, Daft Punk, David Beckham and Noel Gallagher with Greedo,
Chewbacca and the rest of the cantina crowd on Star Wars planet Mos Eisley. Lightsabers and snazzy sneakers? Cue the cool-kid head explosions.
But earning the title of Marketing’s “Agency of the Year” takes a lot more than one insanely popular web video. There is a laundry list of criteria, from agency revenue and staff size to accounts won and creative output. Sid Lee ticked all the boxes for on-paper requirements: the agency grew by 100 staffers, overseas operations accounted for 40% of the agency’s overall revenue, up 20% over last year. Aside from expanding its responsibilities for a global brand powerhouse like Adidas, they also added AOR duties for Laurentian Bank, digital duties for Danone, Rona and Simons, opened a 15-person Toronto office and grew the agency’s production arm, Jimmy Lee, to 20 employees. This month will see the launch of another new division, Sid Lee Tech, with a staff of 40.
But beyond the facts and figures, Sid Lee rose above the pack. Again. After winning for the first time in 2009, Sid Lee returns as our “Agency of the Year” because beyond the measurable success enjoyed in 2010, the shop put on a clinic for what the industry may (and arguably, should) look like in the not-so-distant future. Sid Lee’s business model is consciously crafted to treat every aspect of a brand’s public face as a marketing opportunity, which is why it comes in handy to have architects, interior designers and digital wizards on staff. This isn’t a galaxy far, far away. It’s right now. And increasingly, global brands are not only paying attention, but
putting their money where their mouth is. Witness the agency’s project work for Coke in France and building on its AOR status for Red Bull Canada with an assignment to design the brand’s Amsterdam headquarters.
In terms of creative output, there was the rebrand campaign for Montreal’s STM transportation system, the relaunch of Cirque du Soleil online, opening of the flagship retail location for Stylexchange, as well as Videotron’s largest launch in five years for the brand’s Infinite 3G consumer plans and Illico multiplatform interface, as well as the just-opened flagship store in Montreal. Sid Lee senior executive vice-president François Lacoursière called this one of his highlights of the year. “This was a very big year for Videotron, and our biggest challenge was to make sure that the different pieces we produced were consistent with the brand’s visual identity. We’re proud that we were able to change how consumers perceive the brand. And we’re even prouder that we had a blast while doing it.”
The agency also redesigned the retail experience and created an award-winning iPhone app for Société des alcools du Québec. “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,” says SAQ director of marketing Michel-André St-Jean. The SAQ mobile app had more than 80,000 downloads in its first four months, and enabled users to access in-store promotions, find the closest SAQ store based on current location and determine the availability of a specified product. “As a marketer, you’re not looking at just what the next campaign should be,” says St-Jean. “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 kind of consistency you aim for. And Sid Lee has been very good at that for us.”
TBWA\Worldwide chairman and global director Lee Clow is a fan of Sid Lee and agrees with St- Jean’s assessment. As he should, since TBWA’s Los Angeles-based Media Arts Lab has largely steered the Apple brand for more than a decade. “Everything now blurs together and I think it’s the reality of the future of our business,” says Clow. “Anything that touches the audience is advertising.” Clow admires Sid Lee’s multidisciplinary approach to the agency model. “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,” says Clow. Sid Lee president Jean-Francois Bouchard points to the strong variety of disciplines within the agency walls, and how it’s grown over the last year. “At the end of the year, when we look back at what we’ve done in interactive, technology, content, leveraging social media and exploring new technology ideas, I think we will come to the conclusion that at one end of the spectrum our digital practice is very progressive and exploring all kinds of new approaches,” says Bouchard. “At the other end of the spectrum, in a very physical way, our architecture and retail design practice is really thriving. Those two extremes are exciting because they show this multidisciplinary model
has quite a lot of stretch to it and there is still a lot of potential.” Clow’s agency has a common client with Sid Lee in Adidas, with whom the Canadian upstart has continued to gain more influence, this year winning AOR duties for Adidas Performance to go along with its work as AOR for Adidas Originals and interactive AOR for the Style Essentials side of the brand.
“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,” says Adidas vice-president global brand marketing sport style Nicole Vollebregt. “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.”
While it’s easy to focus on Sid Lee’s artistic and creative side—look no further than the agency’s Collective that hosted more than 10 art events between Montreal and Amsterdam last year—clients are equally impressed with how that creativity is intertwined with keen business smarts. The agency prides itself on the flexibility of its strategic planning and creative departments.
“You have to be flexible on both sides because it’s a journey,” says agency co-founder and chief creative officer Philippe Meunier. “When you attack a brand from different angles you have to be flexible and open-minded enough to know what is good and will work and what won’t.” Meunier points to an Adidas Originals project this year that integrated augmented reality with the product, by way of the sneaker’s tongue.
“It wasn’t a part of the original strategy but a creative came up with the idea and we reworked the strategy around it,” says Meunier. “You can start with a big idea for a campaign, which for a lot of people is a TV spot. But if you’re trying to extend that to the web, a mobile device or a game, sometimes it doesn’t work so you have go back to the foundation of the brand. That is the exercise we do between the strategy and creative people. It may sound it, but it’s not easy.” “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,” says Red Bull Canada’s vice-president of marketing Keith Degrace. “They challenge us and provide us with different angles of thought, which is ultimately what you look for in an ideal agency partner, beyond just the straight creative.”
Videotron’s vice-president of brand management and content Claude Foisy echoes the sentiment. “We can talk to Sid Lee about social networks, mobile apps, creativity in our sponsorships, traditional advertising, content integration—everything,” he says. “It would be much more difficult to execute at the same level without this kind of model.” Sid Lee has been touting its multi-pronged creative model since the agency’s name was Diesel, and on the shifting landscape that is advertising today, that position looks as surefooted as ever. It’s what happens when clients see results, and celebrate by drinking their agency’s Kool-Aid.
“At the end of the day, we measure our success in sales,” says Foisy. “Sid Lee is not only creative but also knows that what they do is execute our brand mission and values to help customers experience and ultimately buy our products. And the results are there.”
