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(Titles and employers of interviewees are those in effect at time of interview)
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Jean-François Bouchard
President
Diesel Marketing
Montreal
Two topics are top of mind these days for Jean-François Bouchard, the 34-year-old founding partner and president of Montreal-based Diesel Marketing: the aim for Montreal’s advertising agencies to be a force on the world advertising stage, and the aim of Diesel to become one of those agencies noted on that international stage.
He knows it won’t happen overnight, despite the outstanding recent successes of Diesel. It will take one step at a time, just as the agency has progressed since its founding 10 years ago.
"But there’s no reason why Montreal can’t be home to successful agencies like those in northern Europe and South America," he says. "The Quebec industry has tons of potential. A lot of agencies have used the ‘client’ excuse – that the clients aren’t sophisticated enough - as the reason that they haven’t been able to progress to world class level. Bullshit! Clients are sophisticated enough to want their agencies to produce groundbreaking advertising.
"Even though Montreal isn’t an international capital of advertising, it has tons of creative talent that is bilingual and can roughly understand Canada’s two cultures. It’s an amazing springboard for great work. As long as we’re not great on the world stage, I won’t be happy! We have to work harder."
The Industry Has Come Full Circle
The Quebec market began to make its mark in the advertising world back in the 1960s when, among French advertising pioneers, one Jacques Bouchard began to explain his theory of twin bed marketing. The need for specific French creative to reach the Quebec market has since been a selling point by Quebec agencies and, for many, their raison d’étre.
Jean-François is a distant cousin of Jacques, and while he appreciates the efforts of the industry’s ‘grand-père’, he feels the Quebec industry has come full circle.
"Jacques built the industry by explaining the walls and the self-contained market that responds to a different approach," says the Diesel president. "It was right for the time, but now, if we do well, we can take it out of these walls. The industry here can get better by focusing on what’s outside of the walls. It now needs to take its expertise to the next level, to meet world class standards and to promote itself."
‘Cocky’ Attitude Led to Founding
Bouchard and Philippe Meunier, award-winning vice-president creative director, are high school friends and entrepreneurs who have worked only at Diesel, the agency they founded in 1993, building it to a current staff of 70, revenues of approximately $7 million in 2002, and an impressive list of clients that includes two from the earliest days: The Sleeman Brewing and Malting Co. Ltd. and Uniprix Pharmacie Associée drugstore chain.
Bouchard studied law at the University of Ottawa – founding a student ad agency during that time – and after graduating, hooked up with Meunier who had studied design at the Université du Québec à Montréal. The two had done some freelance work together, Bouchard as a writer – "I thought I was an artist until I saw Meunier’s work and saw how bad I was."
The two tried to sell themselves to various agencies as a creative team.
"We weren’t thrilled with what we saw – most of them looked like law offices – and they thought that we were too cocky," says Bouchard. "So we decided that, rather than find a job, we’d start our own agency."
The rest is history. The agency is now owned by 12 partners, including seniors Bouchard, Meunier, Bertrand Cesvet, chairman and head of strategy, François Lacoursière, who heads the advertising team, and Martin Gauthier, head of the interactive team. Another partner is CDP Capital, a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. CDP Capital also recently became a Diesel client.
Bouchard now sticks to administration.
"I see my job as fostering an environment to spur the best creation possible," he says. "If I was in creative, or in finance, or whatever, I’d be average or maybe good, but not great. So I have to be president!"
2002: Improved Product But Revenue Down
Diesel has had constant growth, although 2002 revenue is down slightly from a year ago when it had a spectacular increase of about 80%, due to several million dollar Web site assignments.
"This was the year where we reached the next level in creative and got the recognition, also winning numerous awards," says Bouchard. "However, our costs were up. But we’ve recently added several prestigious new clients including, besides CDP Capital, Réno-Dépôt, Loto-Québec and a share of the Canadian Tourism Commission which we helped Palmer Jarvis DDB to pitch and win in November/02."
It was the first time Diesel had pitched an account with PJDDB.
"We got to know and respect PJDDB when Tony Altilia (now president and CEO of Downtown Partners DDB) headed it in Toronto," says Bouchard. However, there is no other connection between the two agencies.
"We work on a mandate by mandate basis. Sure, we’ve been approached by others to merge or become partners, but we want to stay independent for now. It’s easy to work with good creative agencies like PJDDB. It makes for good chemistry. But this way, we can pitch with others, too. As to the future, who knows?"
Diesel describes itself as a group of craftspeople, taking pride in their work regardless of account size or billings.
"And, like a sculptor whose work improves continually, our craft gets better every single year," Bouchard says. Since 1998, Diesel has consistently won awards in major Quebec, Canadian and international competitions, including a Cassie for Sleeman’s beer in the only Canadian advertising competition that is based on results rather than advertising creative alone.
"Awards aren’t a goal in themselves," says Bouchard. "But it’s important to measure oneself against the rest of the creative community. If we win, it’s icing on the cake."
Role of the Web
Having such clients as the Cirque du Soleil, Tourisme Montréal and CDP means that more than 50% of Diesel’s work is done in English. (Of all clients, only two or three advertise only in French.) The team is particularly proud of its Web site developed for the Cirque du Soleil in 2002. It not only found a way to interpret six different brands within one site, but the site allows the user to actually experience part of the different Cirque shows.
"It’s an amazing direct marketing tool," says Bouchard. "In the six months from its launch, the Cirque gained 1,000% more members in its loyalty club. The return on the site compared to what was spent is dramatic, crazy, totally incredible."
Bouchard sees the Web very much as a relationship marketing tool rather than a transactional one, and says that the industry is becoming more balanced as this is realized.
As a com-dot.com company (i.e., working in both traditional communications and the Internet), Diesel itself was hit when, in late 2001, the end of several major Web projects for such companies as Domtar, Tourisme Quebec and Astral Media and the collapse of the dot.com industry necessitated a cut of 40 staffers, mainly from its Web division.
"What was originally expected from online marketing was somewhat unrealistic," says Bouchard. "Now marketers of durable goods, of products with international scope and complex products and services understand the Web’s important role in the marketing mix as a marketing relationship tool. It’s the ultimate direct marketing medium. Spending millions of dollars on a Web site today isn’t easy, but marketers today can’t afford not to have a Web site."
While Diesel didn’t lose any clients with the dot.com downturn, several clients halted or greatly reduced their Web spending for a year or so. However, says Bouchard, new products are starting up or indicated, and the interactive side of the agency is picking up again. About two-thirds of the agency’s business is for traditional advertising and one-third is in the interactive sector – a ratio that Bouchard expects it to maintain for the foreseeable future. The agency has a one-floor creative team, with people working in different disciplines as required, and using research and both pre-test and post-test measurement to nourish the creative process.
"The more you pre-test, the better it is," says Bouchard. "Some agencies don’t do enough pre-testing."
Agencies Must Do Better at 1-to-1
As a com-dot.com firm, Diesel took the early stand that it would offer a combination of mass communications and personalized communications, driven by technology.
"And by personalized, we don’t mean just Web sites," says Bouchard. "We mean a broader definition that includes online, direct marketing and database marketing.
"One of the industry’s goals has to be to fully grasp the implications of personalized communications. Agencies are good as mass communicators, but they must do a better job at one-to-one communications. We also think advertising agencies today tend to be too advertising-centric, taking the opportunity to grab bigger budgets and then adding ancillary services to get more. With us, it’s a one-team approach for all. We’re not saying we’re doing it perfectly, but it’s a quest. And I think if the industry doesn’t roll up its sleeves and change its approach, advertising will be in trouble in five or 10 years."
Bold Approach to Learning
For someone who hasn’t worked in any other agency, Bouchard may seem opinionated without cause. However, he’s not coming out of left field or without having absorbed knowledge of the industry. One of his personal pleasures is travelling, and with the same seemingly ‘cocky’ attitude that saw the launch of Diesel 10 years ago, he thinks nothing on his trips of calling presidents of internationally-recognized agencies and getting himself invited to spend time exploring their minds and working methods. He’s done it with TBWA, with Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe (London, Eng.), and with the renowned Jacques Seguela in France.
"I try to meet interesting people when I’m travelling," says Bouchard. He also does extensive reading (his latest, ‘Ishmael’ by David Quinn is a "must read’, says Bouchard), and regularly jogs, swims and wants to get back into tennis. Along with these, he, with the assistance of his significant other, looks after his two children: Alexandre (8) and Justine (6), every second week.
"When I have the kids, my focus is on them," he says. "I love the little details like simply having lunch with them."
La Relève
And when his focus is on work, it’s not only for Diesel but also for the industry at large. Bouchard is intense on building the new generation of players in the industry. He negotiated with the École des Hautes Études Commerciales on behalf of the Association des Agences de Publicité du Québec to help establish the current two-year Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées course specialized in marketing communications. It graduated its first students in 2002.
"The course still has to be improved and promoted more," says Bouchard. "I’d like to see it become a Bachelor’s and full Master’s degree program."
Diesel also offers a bursary for students in related disciplines at UQAM, Université de Sherbrooke and Concordia University. Students and other recruits get ‘boot camp’ training at the agency.
"We try to develop talent," Bouchard says. "Not everybody makes it.’ One who did is UQAM grad Eva Van Den Bockle, who has made a name for herself as an up-and-coming art director.
The agency also does two pro-bono campaigns annually. Those most recent were on literacy and on conjugal violence. Along with growing work for Diesel’s extensive list of clients - and the search for more - Bouchard and the agency are kept hopping. He’d love to add an auto client, "and anyone with international needs." (Unless a client has its own media agency, Diesel usually works with Montreal-based Touché! Média-Marketing Inc., its media agency of choice.)
The Future
Clients don’t often leave, nor do staffers.
"We don’t manage human resources," says Bouchard. "We manage humans. That’s why our people like working here. It’s warmer, livelier, and less political. It’s been like that since the beginning. Our whole credo can be summed up as ‘To make a difference, you have to be different’. Our clients respect that we have a great set of people with solid strategy and great creative."
Like anywhere else, Diesel, and Bouchard, have off days, but Bouchard says that his greatest strength is his resilience.
"You can beat me with a baseball bat, but I always get back on my feet and start moving again," he says. "That’s common to entrepreneurs."
Where will Diesel and Bouchard be in five years?
"We climb one stair at a time. We’ll be five steps higher and competing with the top creative players of the world. Like a craftsman, we all work to improve and will get better every year. That’s where I find the joy in my professional life. I’m young and have a lot of years ahead of me. I’ll be here climbing the steps."
(Jan. 5/03)
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Copyright (c) 2003 Rice Wine Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Articles may be referenced but proper credit must be given to PubZone(tm) as the source. Any other use of this material requires the written consent of the publisher.
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