Cossette Interactive’s creative director, Michael Convery, likens working in new media to travelling on a high-speed locomotive. ‘You’re on the train and you’re working very quickly,’ he says, ‘it’s moving at a great speed – and you don’t know where it’s going, but the ride is exhilarating!’

With Cossette Interactive, which is part of the

Cossette Communication-Marketing family of

companies, that train travels from coast-to-coast, from Halifax to Vancouver, with many stops in-between.

‘We are Cossette, and as such, we bring our clients not just online communications, but marketing solutions at every point of contact our customers have in their day,’ says Convery, ‘and with offices all across the country, that convergent message has a national presence.’

Toronto general manager Shari Walczak agrees. ‘Different shops tend to be skewed to one skill over another – some are very technical, others are more creatively-focused,’ says Walczak. ‘What we bring is a combination of skills. We start by getting an in-depth understanding of the target audience and business problem. Then we take all of our interactive marketing expertise, often augmenting that by drawing on the Cossette companies. With so many experts within the Cossette group – public relations, general advertising, planning, research and media – we are able to take all of that collective knowledge and provide insight into the needs of the target audience. From there, we build the foundation for an effective and relevant recommendation to take back to a Client. Our solutions are always rooted in a ‘start-with-the-consumer-first’ mentality coupled with a strong understanding of our Client’s business and their overall objectives.’

Established in Montreal in 1995, Cossette Interactive specializes in strategic planning and consulting, creative development, web development, multimedia development, online advertising and new media analysis and research. Its national client list includes Bell Canada, General Motors, Parent’s Help Line, Abitibi Consolidated, Nike, McDonald’s, General Mills, PetroCanada, Royal Bank, Coke and the Dairy Farmers of Canada, among others. Recently it has created websites for Saturn Canada, the Toronto International Film Festival, Saab Canada, Seagate Software, Printemps du Quebec a Paris and Produits forestiers Alliance. ‘National cohesion is very important,’ says Jean Gaudreau, general manager of Cossette Interactif in Montreal. ‘We have to think nationally, but act locally. Fifty years ago, ad campaigns were all translated quite literally. Now we understand that consumers’ needs might be different in different regions, (whether they speak English or French). Also, the Internet is a one-to-one form of communication and we have to get close to the consumer, know them well and build a personal relationship with them.’

Gaudreau explains that building that personal relationship usually requires using a consistent creative platform to carry a campaign from television to radio to outdoor and then to the Internet, where, ‘we add value by making it interactive.’ Pulling off truly cohesive campaigns, he says, involves not only having a strong production team and facilities in-house, but when warranted, going to Cossette companies such as Blitz, which specializes in direct marketing, promotion and database management or to Impact Research, for expertise in interactive

measurement.

What’s the Big Idea?

Although being up on the latest technology is key to being interactive specialists, Cossette still maintains that great ideas are the key to marketing

success, in any medium.

It takes a big idea to break through the clutter – and we consider ourselves big idea generators – in addition to a strong execution that brings that idea to life. We’ve got an experienced in-house technical team, a full complement of in-house designers, and strong strategic expertise, so we’re not a haphazard group of people trying to do website projects; we really draw on the power of the agency to develop innovative solutions, but as a stand-alone, we hold our own against the top specialty boutiques.’

Walczak says that Cossette’s expertise lies in developing convergent communications plans in which every tactical element – advertising, directmail, public relations, research as well as interactive media – has a defined role and function within the overall mix.

Roadtenderizer

Cossette’s recent marriage of billboard and website for its Nike ‘roadtenderizer’ campaign, is one example where two mediums had very defined roles. The campaign, which ran in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver involved a simple billboard featuring a teaser photo of its new shoe and an URL address – www.roadtenderizer.com. That’s it.

‘I thought it was a fairly brave initiative for Nike to take on for the launch of this high-end running shoe,’ says Convery. ‘This was a totally fascinating campaign for me. The web address communicated a benefit (roadtenderizer) not the name of the shoe, and we had to have faith that consumers would be intrigued enough by the billboard to remember the URL and later go to their computers and look it up.’

Walczak says the idea for the campaign came from a brainstorming session with Cossette’s traditional agency creative (which had worked on Nike campaigns before) and the Interactive group. From there, Cossette Interactive built a small microsite using Flash that delivered more information on the shoe and could connect people to the global Nike site.

‘No-one was counting how many shoes were sold, but it got a reasonable number of visits,’ says

Convery. ‘More importantly, the leading-edge nature of the campaign did something for the brand.’

Another highly successful initiative for Cossette was its award-winning Toronto International

Film Festival web site for sponsor Bell Canada (www.bell.ca/filmfest). ‘The sponsorship was about building a worldclass site for film festival-goers,’ says Convery. ‘What we did was deliver a very user-friendly site that provided a lot of extra value by delivering really useful tools designed to make the experience of the film festival better.

Our goal was to give them more than they expected – making their visit to the Filmfest better, making it easier to select movies, to schedule movie-going, to buy tickets and to make their way around the city.

‘We also created an online contest to drive additional awareness and involvement in the whole festival experience,’ he continues. ‘We wrapped all that up in a really great design – urban and sophisticated, but with a playful and friendly feel, that wouldn’t talk down to a sophisticated audience.’

The success continued with the Open Ice Canadian Hockey Summit site, an effort produced by

Cossette for Bell. ‘It was an event with a limited live capacity. The only way for the media and hockey fans nationally to join the Summit was through a live webcast,’ says Walczak. ‘It was a way in which we really utilized the power and benefit of new technology, to increase involvement in the event and reach our target audience, beyond the physical event itself.’

For most of our projects,’ Walczak continues, ‘we don’t build sites that sit there statically. We work in partnership with our clients to come up with a full content management strategy. We don’t go for cookie-cutter solutions. We ensure we have a good understanding of the brand positioning and the corporate objectives as well as the consumer. From there,’ she continues, ‘we make sure that whatever we are doing enhances and works in tandem with what customers are seeing at every possible brand contact point. With both a national presence and regional experts, we are able to successfully apply our strategies to different markets across the country with unique and truly convergent programs.’

Cossette Interactive – Toronto

Shari Walczak, General Manager

21 St. Clair East,

Toronto, ON M4T 1L9

(416)934-8041

swalczak@cossette.com

Cossette Interactif – Montreal

Jean Gaudreau, General Manager

1558 Dr. Penfield

Montreal, PQ

(514) 282-4785

jgaudreau@cossette.com

Cossette Interactif – Quebec City

Anne Hudon, General Manager

437 La Grande Alle Est

Quebec, PQ G1R 2J5

(418)521-3788

ahudon@cossette.com

Cossette Interactive – Vancouver

Kathryn Grafton, Managing Director

1128 Homer St.

Vancouver, BC V6B 2M9

(604) 647-2974

kgrafton@cossette.com

Also in this sponsored supplement:

– Overview p.I1

– Generation Net p.I2

– CyberSight p.I3

– MacLaren McCann Interactive p.I4

– Rare Medium Canada p.I6

– WSi Interactive Corporation p.I8