SIMONA RABINOVITCH
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, May. 07, 2007 11:55AM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 10:46PM EDT
The Old Montreal headquarters of SID LEE practically gives off an electric buzz. The "commercial creativity firm," with its chalk-scribbled, lime-green and crimson walls and hypnotic techno music playing in the background, feels more like a hip bar than an office.
"What we're doing is unlocking the economic power of creativity," says Jean-François Bouchard, who trained as a lawyer before co-founding SID LEE in 1993. Originally called Diesel Marketing, the new name is a playful anagram of "diesel."
"We want our people to be stimulated with new forms of creativity all the time."
SID LEE, which offers marketing services in the fields of branding, architectural design and advertising, has a roster of international clients including Adidas, Red Bull, Suzuki, MGM Grand and Cirque du Soleil.
"We've been at the forefront of creating revolutions in our industry by integrating interactive [marketing] to a degree no agency has in Canada," Mr. Bouchard says. For example, SID LEE adds architects and industrial designers to its office mix through a partnership with architectural firm Aedifica.
Among the examples of SID LEE's innovative flavour are new wine shops for the Quebec liquor board that organize wines according to food matches and taste profiles rather than by region.
SID LEE encourages its 150 employees to maximize their own creative potential by proposing projects.
Through bursaries and other support, the company helps transform them into reality. "People can come to us with all kinds of projects [outside of their specialty] and we'll give them a shot," says Mr. Bouchard, a father of two who himself moonlights as a photographer.
But beyond techno music and artistic freedom, teamwork is the real spark that ignites SID LEE's potential, he says.
"It's my team, it's not me. We run this company with six people ... I never make a decision by myself," he says. "If I have one talent, it's to take creative people and all their insecurities, talents, egos and aspirations — and to make sure we work as a team toward an objective."
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