DESIGN | SILVER
This story was originally published in the 2023 fall issue of strategy magazine.
Nestled in downtown Montreal’s Place Ville Marie, not too far from the city’s charming Old Port, you’ll find Sid Lee’s headquarters. The agency that’s been around since 1993 – first called Diesel, then rearranged into the anagram Sid Lee – recently renovated its offices so that staff want to go in and create great work in the comfort of their second home.
A little over a year ago, Martin Gauthier, who was already partner and president, took on the role of CEO at Sid Lee Canada with the specific goal of unifying the Toronto and Montreal offices. “In the past, it was always Toronto versus Montreal. There was some competition,” he admits. “We used to function as two distinct units, each with its own president and separate P&L statements. But I wanted us to be one big Canadian agency that serves more and more pan-Canadian brands.”
Now, Montreal’s office, including an architecture arm (Sid Lee is one of the few agencies that has one), and its Toronto arm operate as one family. Gauthier travels extensively between the two offices on a weekly basis, ensuring that Sid Lee’s teams “collaborate seamlessly.”
“While we maintain separate creative, strategy and account teams in each city, they… complement one another. And our production, CRM, digital and architecture studios have been consolidated into unified departments.” In addition, all of the leaders are expected to convene in either Montreal or Toronto for in-person executive committee meetings on a monthly basis.
Sid Lee also makes a concerted effort to collaborate seamlessly with a client’s “marketing department to make sure that, one, we have a better synergy with them, and, two, that we keep them for a long time,” Gauthier explains. “For instance, we frequently hold agency days with Rogers, during which both teams seamlessly unite, working together in the same office for a day.”
This dedication to nurturing relationships is part of Sid Lee’s long-term business strategy and is something the agency’s clients have come to expect – Sobeys, Belair Direct, Air Transat, TGX, Rona, Cirque du Soleil and Maple Leaf Foods, are all long-term clients.
Sid Lee has also been investing in UX/UI and CRM so that it can deliver better on digital work. In fact, this is such an important zone for Sid Lee that in 2018 it acquired BIMM, a company that specializes in CRM.
“There are a lot of brands that work with UX/UI agencies, yet many lack the comprehensive creative expertise and depth that we offer at Sid Lee – a cadre of skilled professionals specializing in CRM, UX/UI, design, digital strategy, front-end and backend development and creativity. And they all work together toward a singular objective: crafting a worldclass digital brand experience centered on human emotions. It’s pretty unique.”
An example of how the agency leverages these skills can be found in the complete redesign of TFO’s digital ecosystem. In a landscape where the Canadian French language educational television channel and media organization contends with streaming giants like Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube, it needed to stand out. And Sid Lee’s challenge was twofold.
“Not only did we need to revolutionize the entire online experience, providing exceptional quality in every aspect, but we also had to cater to the unique needs of children, a primary user group that often cannot yet read and may not be fluent in the French language.
All of this was undertaken with meticulous attention to discoverability, given that TFO’s platform operates on the open internet, rather than within a closed ecosystem,” Gauthier says. In roughly six weeks, the agency built an ad-free, user-friendly digital universe complete with 5,000 pieces of content.
When it comes to the creative work that Sid Lee goes after, it very much keeps its people in mind, pitching for work that they’re excited about, because Gauthier knows that investing in his people is investing in results. “This is why we are not only working with Canadian brands, but we are also working with international brands,” such as WB Games, Hasbro, NASDAQ and Angel’s Envy.
“The truth of the matter is we are not just competing against other creative agencies, we are also competing against strategy firms such as EY, KPMG and Deloitte,” says Gauthier. “The golden years of advertising are behind us, now we need to fight every single day to keep our clients and to win new business.”
New business
PUR Gum, Chard Development, Hasbro U.S., RGD – Design thinkers, Cannes Lions, Rogers, Hema Quebec, Félix & Paul, Nutrafol, Point S, PIXMOB, Groupe Media TFO, LCI Education Network, Montréal Canadiens, FIFA, Nasdaq, Pernod Ricarde
Offices
Montreal, Toronto
Staff
400
CASES
1. Not playing games. Janette Bertrand’s groundbreaking influence in Quebec feminism takes centre stage in Janette and Daughters, a doc that played on Tele-Quebec. Sid Lee created a visual identity to support the film that challenges patriarchal norms, with custom typography that mirrors Bertrand’s multifaceted career. An all-female team harmonized the documentary’s visual universe with historically inspired motion design.
2. Serres de rue transformed old car shelters into solar greenhouses, bringing year-round urban farming to Montreal’s streets. Promoting local food, sustainability and car dependency awareness, the crops also supported low-income communities and community meals.
3. To engage Gen Z audiences who aren’t passionate about hockey, Sid Lee and the Montreal Canadiens created “The Original One” subbrand. It celebrated Montreal’s unique culture and originality, aligning with Gen Z values of self-expression and individuality.
