In the beginning, Mario D’Amico wasn’t keen on joining the circus.

In fact, D’Amico, who was quite comfortable in his well-etched advertising career (he had risen to GM of Montreal’s Publicis after 11 years) had to be convinced that joining Cirque du Soleil’s then meagre, very family-oriented marketing department was the best move for him. But eventually he was. Fortunately, too, as it turned out.

Under his watch as VP marketing – and with the help of Joanne Fillion, Cirque’s senior brand director whom he nabbed from Molson – Cirque has morphed into a global brand with a slew of sponsors that would make any event marketer envious, and the kind of constantly innovative marketing treatments that are every CD’s dream.

D’Amico’s vision has also physically grown the brand. In four years he has almost doubled its new markets from 45 to 85 cities where the troupes perform, says Daniel Lamarre, Cirque du Soleil’s president and chief of operations. Lamarre also credits him with refining the ‘strategy of rarity,’ which means, quite simply, that it is difficult to get tickets to a Cirque show. The fallout? An increased cachet surrounding the Cirque experience.

The most recent endeavour is Corteo. Cirque’s sixth touring show is the story of a clown who imagines his funeral. But rather than being sombre and cheerless, it’s a celebratory look back at the wondrous life of a clown. ‘This is a very different show,’ explains D’Amico, who joined the company in 1999. ‘It harkens back to the old circus tradition, so it’s a very delicate, very poetic show.’

As with all Cirque’s touring shows, the launch of Corteo in late April was from the company’s Montreal home base. But this time, D’Amico wanted to do things differently. Months ago, he challenged the show’s creative team to change the show experience, fearful that one Cirque show was becoming indiscernible from another.

The result is a 360-degree stage, which provides the unique effect of having audiences watch the show, but each other as well. Next, for the customary unveiling to Quebec media, he ‘clawed and screamed’ to have the press conference in that same big top and not the studio, which had been the case for numerous shows over the years. The media loved it. The coverage in the province was ‘phenomenal,’ he says, adding that while it costs more to assemble and disassemble a larger stage, doing something ‘visually different’ will better the experience for the consumer and increase the value of the brand.

Fresh thinking also extended to the new relationship with Canadian sponsor Bell. ‘They said how can we help you and how can you help us instead of just putting their logo on the poster,’ he explains. ‘We said: ‘Maybe we integrate this press conference into your media.” So Bell Webcasted the launch.

The presentation so dazzled Bell execs, they rushed to create a pay-per-view program which has run on Bell ExpressVu. (Innovative partnerships, too numerous to mention here, are a Cirque hallmark, attracting the likes of IBM, CIBC, BMW, Audi and Celebrity Cruises to the brand.)

Those are but small examples of the kind of thinking that elicits raves about D’Amico from colleagues. ‘They’re outstanding,’ says Bertand Cesvet, a principal at Montreal-based Diesel of both D’Amico and Fillion and the work they’ve done in cementing and growing the brand over the past five years. Cesvet adds D’Amico is ‘driving change in that organization’ bringing together ‘button-down, great marketers’ with a creative sensibility that has helped make Cirque what it is today. It extends to how Cirque treats the agency as well. (Diesel became Cirque’s official agency last year after doing project work for a few years.) Far from ‘lip service,’ says Cesvet, the shop is considered a partner. ‘I even have a Cirque du Soleil employee card with my picture on it. I can walk into any building at any time.’

Perhaps one of D’Amico’s best achievements was hiring Joanne Fillion, who in 2000 was entering her third year in a comfortable brand manager position at Molson. D’Amico worked indirectly with her while at Publicis as it was the beer company’s AOR.

‘Joanne has that balance of being a great marketing person as well as being sensitive to the creative process,’ says D’Amico. When Fillion joined Cirque, her priority was an

in-depth brand audit of about 300 consumers from around the world. ‘The first thing I did was talk to consumers,’ she says. ‘I understood the brand was a jewel and we needed to protect and leverage at the same time.’

The brand audit in 2000 unearthed 64 brand values which remain at the heart of its marketing efforts. Included on that list: creativity, ‘humancentricity’ (by humans, for humans, about humans) and a nomadic spirit. That means the marketing for each show has to have a very different treatment. Undoubtedly, being creatively different for each campaign is a challenge, but, well, it’s Cirque. ‘It’s part of who we are,’ says Fillion. ‘The company was built on taking risks.’

And being risqué – like Zumanity, the 2003, very sexy, very adult show, Cirque felt needed a grassroots marketing approach. So they organized parties at ‘in’ bars in Miami, San Francisco and NYC visited by the show’s scantily clad dancers.

They sent e-mails to their one-million-strong global database about the edgy cabaret show to weed out fans drawn to more mainstream fare. To those interested, newsletters from a ‘madam’ were e-mailed every two or three weeks with a different tidbit of information (an interview with the show’s director for example). Very sexy postcards were designed and distributed. The Web site included ‘levels’ within a brothel, which became sexier at each level.

That time they chose to leak details slowly, says Fillion. ‘We felt that to give it all at once [in a press conference] as we usually do would not be fair to that show.’

That creative uniqueness also affects how they enter a market. ‘Cirque needs to go a bit deeper and more under the skin because that’s what makes it a success,’ D’Amico says. So that means sending five or six team members to a new market at least 18 months before the show arrives. That team spends at least a week there, hiring a PR person to introduce them to key media folks, visiting the coolest bars, meeting the best artists – ‘to really get a good feeling for what makes that city tick artistically and culturally,’ D’Amico says. It may also mean finding a local artist and inviting him to watch Cirque shows and once inspired, create a piece based on the show that will be used as merchandising in that city.

‘Merchandising has become about extending the experience,’ says D’Amico. ‘[It] cannot just be a ball cap and T-shirt.’

Despite increasing success, D’Amico is far from complacent. ‘Something you learn in the entertainment business is that the public is really fickle. We could become yesterday’s news very quickly. That’s my worst

nightmare.’ But it’s a dim reality, based on what D’Amico himself recognizes is at the brand’s core. ‘Cirque is like the long-distance lover you don’t see every week. You fly over to see the person, you have a fabulous weekend and you get back to your regular job. That’s the role I think Cirque plays. I think Cirque is about being special.’

Five questions

Favourite book: The Catcher in the Rye. It made me think about my life at a very early age

Favourite movie: Being John Malkovich. It’s incredibly inventive and just a plain neat idea

Favourite TV show of all time: Get Smart (although I admit it was much funnier when I was 12.)

Favourite TV commercial of all time: Apple Computers ‘1984’ for the Mac. It’s probably the most effective ad of all time.

Marketer you admire most:

PT Barnum. He invented showmanship.