[ Sid Lee opens doors in Amsterdam ]
November 20, 2008 | By Matt Semansky
Montreal-based advertising agency Sid Lee officially opened its European office in Amsterdam today, along with the company’s first creative gallery, retail store and café.
The opening comes roughly 18 months after Sid Lee’s partners chose Amsterdam as its European home. In the interim, the agency has recruited staff and redesigned the office space in the multicultural De Pijp district of the city.
Jean-Francois Bouchard, president at Sid Lee, said Amsterdam shares several common cultural elements with Montreal, making it a natural second home for the agency.
“[Montreal and Amsterdam] are two minority cultures trying to project themselves onto the world, and the Dutch have been at it for hundreds of years,” said Bouchard. “They’ve attracted all this culture—French culture, English culture, German culture—but learned how to speak in their own voice.
“As French-speaking Canadians, that’s what we’re trying to do also, and we can learn a lot from the Dutch.”
And while the new location puts Sid Lee closer to clients and potential clients in Europe, Africa and Asia, attracting international creative talent and providing a new platform for artists in the Sid Lee Collective were equally important factors behind the move to Amsterdam.
“This whole endeavour was not about coming here to try and win clients geographically,” said Bouchard. “It was about enriching our creative culture with new ideas, new people and new ways of doing things.”
Sid Lee’s Amsterdam operation opens with 12 full-time staff, and is led by the Dutch team of Niels Van De Walle, managing partner, and Harm Sas, partner, creative strategy. The office will mainly concentrate on work for Adidas Originals, the international account captured by Sid Lee earlier this year.
Frederic Gauthier, director of the Sid Lee Collective, will manage and curate the gallery, which will feature work by Canadian artists associated with Sid Lee. Clothing, kitchenware and other products designed by Sid Lee Collective artists are also available for sale in the retail section of the gallery.
