Walking down the wide corridor that bisects Sid Lee's offices, I see a lot of stars–one triangle inverted over the other. The walls here are semi-transparent white boards used for scribbling ideas, and most are covered with the six-pointed diagrams resembling the Star of David. Has the agency picked up work from a Jewish group, I wonder, a local client to go along with the global Adidas account it just won? I file the question away as I move past the frosted glass walls, observing ghostly figures behind them, scribbling away with dry erase markers.

Sid Lee's offices are actually four isolated suites on the main floor of a building on the southern edge of Old Montreal. Each suite is separated by the main, starry corridor. This is ironic given that Sid Lee is known as one of the most integrated agencies in Canada (and possibly the world). It is the model that Hermann Deininger, chief marketing officer for Adidas Sport Style, called "groundbreaking" when in June he named Sid Lee the lead global creative agency for the Adidas Originals clothing brand.

The account, estimated to be worth more than $5 million annually, is further proof that the agency's reputation for blending traditional and nontraditional creative can be backed by international-quality strategy and execution. Cirque du Soleil, MGM Grand and Red Bull have all benefited from Sid Lee's eclectic skill set, as have local clients such as Loto Quebec, Gaz Métro and alcohol retailer SAQ. What do these clients see in Sid Lee that Toronto marketers seem to overlook? Have they discovered the holy grail of 21st century agency life: integration?

By the time I arrive, the employees have already eaten breakfast. Full-time chefs provide three meals every day for the group of strategists, flash animators and retail designers that is swelling beyond the office's capacity. A year ago the chefs were cooking for 160. Now there are nearly 250 mouths to feed.

Luckily, coffee is still available. I gladly accept a cup and carry it across the hall to meet Philippe Meunier, the shop's chief creative officer and co-founding partner. His office is dimly lit with a 10-foot-long desk running its length. On the large, round lampshade that hangs from the ceiling there are more overlapping triangles. The walls are covered in stars.

"I work with stars," Meunier says. "Everything that matters in the agency is based on triangles. The typical agency creativity model is a triangle. At the peak you have a creative director and below that a copywriter and an art director."

But Meunier believes that "typical" model is insufficient to meet clients' modern needs. It's rooted in the 30-second spot, he says. So Sid Lee takes it a step further. To illustrate, he draws yet another star on his chalkboard door. At the peak is a creative lead, "not a creative director–but always a senior person who has a holistic approach to the work." At the next point is the client. At the next is the account person. "Then, depending on the project, you usually also have the writer, who is the voice of the brand. Sometimes you have an art director, but you could have a flash designer, an animator, an industrial designer, whatever's necessary."

At Sid Lee, these teams are called "ateliers," which translates as "studio," but the translation has a production-house feel the company dislikes. Ateliers are creative teams that are customized to whatever the agency thinks a client needs. As an example, Meunier refers to Red Bull, which does little original Canadian advertising, but does build a 400-metre frozen downhill racetrack every year for the Canadian version of its Crashed Ice extreme sports event, which has a strong online component. Crashed Ice's atelier, therefore, doesn't need an art director; it has industrial designers and interactive specialists. "We see ourselves as superheroes," Meunier says. Everyone has unique skills, but "when we're together, we're amazingly strong."

To build that superhero team, Meunier frequently travels to international schools to find the right talent mix. In the atelier behind Meunier's office–the one currently working on Adidas–I've already heard a jumble of accents. "In terms of advertising and design [Canada is] okay," he explains. "But when you compare the quality of the work in Canada to the Netherlands or Pasadena, we're just on the rim. If we want to be the best, we have to hire the best."

There's no time to ask about the specifics of Adidas' atelier. Meunier is leaving for Quebec City where he's helping with the provincial capital's 400th anniversary celebration. As he rushes to his car, I cross the hall to meet with Bertrand Cesvet, agency chairman, who reclines in an office chair wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Also present is VP Martin Gauthier, who wears a blazer over his T-shirt-and-jeans combo.

Gauthier joined the agency in 1999 when it merged with his digital shop, Stratego. Although Sid Lee began as Meunier and co-founder Jean-Francois Bouchard's student vision of a design-focused ad shop, its global reputation was built online with spectacular work for the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and Cirque du Soleil.

"When we redid the Cirque du Soleil website eight years ago, we decided to go everywhere [to find an agency]," Joanne Fillion, senior brand director for Cirque du Soleil, tells me a few days later on the phone. "We invited people from England and New York City." But Fillion says she was impressed by the creativity Sid Lee displayed at even the early stages of the pitch. For example, the agency presented her with a handmade, handwritten book filled with notes and collages outlining their web strategy. "It felt a lot closer to the Cirque du Soleil creative process in general [than their competitors]," Fillion explains.

Sid Lee won the website redesign, transforming CirqueDuSoleil.com from static links into a portal for each of Cirque's seven shows. The site has since evolved to include all the modern bells and whistles, and the professional relationship has evolved, too. Sid Lee now collaborates on all Cirque's marketing, from product creation to advertising.

Its recent redesign of the Cirque's casting site is a good example of the company's digital upbringing. Like Sid Lee's websites for MGM Grand and Tourisme Montreal, there's a story being told without dialogue. Instead, it uses a blend of animation technology, live action and music to lead visitors through the site's content.

Sitting with Gauthier and Cesvet, talking about how they won Adidas, it's clear they've taken the lessons from their digital past and implemented them across everything they do.

"It started three years ago," Cesvet says, recalling how he first got in touch with the shoe and apparel company. "There was a conference on a boat in New York that cost $50,000 to attend. Marketers come, drink champagne and have to meet with seven vendors for half an hour each. Martin thought it was a scam." Deciding to court Adidas, Cesvet brought a white paper he was working on called "Conversational Capital," which he's since turned into a book (to be released this summer by FT Press). Cesvet had "a very intellectual conversation" about it with the Adidas rep, but flew back to Montreal empty-handed. "Martin thought we'd just blown fifty grand."

A few months later, however, Cesvet got a call from Adidas America. Though its Originals brand already had an AOR relationship with Adidas' overall creative agency, Amsterdam's 180, it was looking to work with others. Rather than pitch with a portfolio and an awards list, Sid Lee brainstormed new ways for Originals to expand. The ideas piqued the interest of Adidas executives, but it was the presentation method that really held their attention. Sid Lee created a hallway-long collage of ideas on a scroll of metre-wide canvas. Not only was it an overwhelming visual representation of where the brand could go, the size of the scroll made it an attention grabber. Senior Adidas executives came out of their offices to see it unrolled in the hall.

Those same executives walked away with "Conversational Capital" in their hands and a few weeks later Sid Lee began working on retail activations for Originals. That led to a call from the head office in Germany, which in turn led to participation in the global pitch to redesign the Adidas Originals retail store. Today, Sid Lee's store concept is up and running in New York City, and the template is being exported around the world. From there, the German head office got Sid Lee involved in the launch of the Denim by Diesel clothing line, and in January the agency will take the creative reins for Original's global platform from 180.

For Sid Lee, the account win comes at the perfect time. Originals is being prepped for global deployment. As the largest part of the company's Sport Style division (which also includes the fashion-focused Y3 brand), Originals has seen its marketing budget expand drastically this year in preparation for a massive consumer outreach starting in 2009. Previously, it targeted trendsetting niche markets mostly in Europe and Asia, according to Nicole Vollebregt, vice-president, global brand marketing at Adidas Sport Style. "The style division will look to, in the next couple of years, expand even further to reach a couple of demos we're not currently hitting," she says on the phone from Germany. And after Originals gets its first mass marketing push, Adidas is readying two new style brands as well–more opportunities for Sid Lee.

Vollebregt has been involved with Sid Lee since the partnership began. "They're really not an advertising agency," she says. "It sounds cliché, but they really are an idea agency. We gave them a problem: we're changing our marketing, we're after a different consumer, we want a different approach, here are the markets we want to focus on, and here are the challenges in those markets. They took all that in and came back with solutions that not only solved business needs, but were interesting and fresh for a younger consumer. It will work globally."

Sitting on the couch in his office, agency president Jean-Francois Bouchard is trying to put into words exactly how his shop functions as an "idea agency." He talks about being "silo-free" and how different units don't have different P+Ls. It's the same words I hear at most other agencies, but perhaps the difference here is that the people on the ground get it, too.

This becomes clear once I'm finally given a glimpse of one of the Adidas ateliers in action. A dozen young creatives crowd around a doodle-covered table to discuss how they're going to pitch their still-top-secret project to the senior partners. This atelier works directly under Meunier; they are his international, star-shaped agency model come to life. Among them are a Dutch professor of design, an intern from Paris, a strategist from Texas and a handful of Montrealers with design backgrounds. There is no mention of TV, radio or print, yet the project touches multiple Adidas brands and will certainly get the industry talking if it gets client approval. Its prospective launch date is in 2012.

Where other agencies are trying to convince their clients of a 360-degree, media-agnostic outlook, Sid Lee has already got a list of credentials as long as Montreal's Old Port. Yet, there is one market they have yet to crack.

"We find it interesting," Bouchard says, "that we're based in Montreal and getting calls from Asia, Europe, the U.S. and South America. And yet I can't remember the last time we got a call from Toronto." In Europe and Asia, companies search globally for agencies. "The only place where this doesn't seem to be happening is Canada. It's depressing."

Since I'm from Toronto, Bouchard asks me why the city's multinational clients only hire Toronto agencies. Maybe it's the lingering belief that Montreal agencies only translate for the Quebec market, I say. Maybe it's the centre-of-the-universe stereotype that Toronto can't shake. In the end, we can't come up with an answer that satisfies, but Bouchard doesn't appear upset. "We just find it weird that Toronto seems to be waiting for us to do what Cossette and Taxi have done in moving there," he says.

Of course, Sid Lee is opening a second office this year–but it's in Amsterdam, as a European talent trap and a home-away-from-home for teams travelling to meet with Adidas and Cirque du Soleil.

Best not hold your breath, Toronto. Sid Lee likes doing business its own way. Its international clients seem to like it, too.