One on one

February 9, 2023 - One-on-One

1- La tête chercheuse celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and you are part of our history. Do you remember your first mandate with us?

I met Louise Descarie when she was working for Touch TV, one of my divisions. After, when I made my sale with Publicis Worldwide, Louise launched La tête chercheuse and, I gave her mandates for client service and creative positions right off the bat. It’s always felt instinctive with you, and it comes with an in-depth knowledge of the market and smart, insightful decisions. Our loyalty has always been with La tête chercheuse.

2- You’re somewhat of an industry icon, and you’ve watched it change. What was been your driving force all these years?

I’ve always been driven by the thrill of the conquest. The excitement of growing the agency and our people while bringing new clients on board and the challenge of helping them grow and embracing their brand like it was ours. Plus, the fun of managing teams: surrounding yourself with brilliant, energetic, enthusiastic people who are able to move things forward. 

When we were doing a pitch, I got into the habit of bringing the team together and asking them: “Do you really want this? Are you ready for this?” If we were lucky enough to get our ideas heard, the goal was to win the pitch even if we had to make lots of sacrifices and lose sleep in the process! It’s all worth it if you’re patient and use your energy wisely. Clients can tell if an agency takes their brand to heart and makes innovative proposals; it’s how you build loyalty. Nowadays, even if the job has changed and we’re dealing with more with data and one-on-one customer relationships, creativity always remains a unique asset.

Clients evaluate us according to our abilities; for them, there’s the must and the plus. The must is the tools we use to help them. The plus is the energy and desire to take it farther, the connection of culture and relationship. When a client understands the team’s energy, it inspires and reassures them.

3- If you had to describe your career path in two words, which would you choose and why?

The word I keep thinking of is “intensity”. It’s who I am, sometimes it’s a flaw but in my line of work it’s also a great quality. There’s intensity, but there’s also a lot of luck. I’ve met four people in my life that were pivotal to my career, where I had to shift gears and take the curve, even if it was toward the unknown.

The first person was Henry Karpus, the executive chairman at Ronalds-Reynolds. When I started working at Ronalds-Reynolds in 1975, I was one of the only francophones in their Montréal office. Henry was the first person who really backed me when I made a pitch to all the McDonald’s franchises, and we were competing against Cossette at the time. Because I was young, people on the inside didn’t think I’d win the pitch: they didn’t really know me because I had just started there. Henry Karpus said, “We’re going with him”. He had enormous confidence in my abilities. He told me, “I’ll be in the back of the room … discard everything else, just do your thing. Whatever happens, happens. I know you can do it.” I was 28 years old. And I won that pitch.

Then, I had the immense privilege to work alongside Terry O’Malley, president of Vickers and Benson Canada, who made me president of the Montréal office. Not long after, the Toronto office was added to my responsibilities. I accepted, but I changed course after that because Jacques Bouchard asked me if I wanted to become co-owner and president of BCP. He was the third person who majorly impacted the trajectory of my career Jacques Bouchard brought me in another direction that had a huge influence on my career. I owe a lot to him.

Maurice Lévy is the fourth person who had a defining impact. When we met, he was president of Publicis Worldwide. A great man, the kind that is not easy to find in our line of work. I met him in 1995 and our partnership had a big impact on the rest of my career. We took over Canada with the Publicis brand, it was the beginning of my career internationally, but it was also an opportunity to get to know this great man. With him, I was able to tap my full potential and test my own limits.

These meetings were absolutely career-changing for me. Both because of the people who I worked and surrounded myself with. In 1999, I met Andrew and Duncan Bruce. This was another game changer because with Andrew and Duncan, we built the Publicis that exists today in Canada.

That’s my intensity, with the pluses and the minuses, but I was fortunate too to cross these people’s paths in my career. You have to stay aware and know how to recognize the people we meet who will influence your career.

4- What inspires you each day and fuels your professional happiness? 

On a professional level, what I find the most interesting is staying up to date with the work and helping my teams with their wins on the day to day. The work and challenges today are much different from what they were 10 years ago. I’m constantly driven by the desire give my 100% so that Publicis and its teams continue to dominate, to stay relevant, stay different. No matter whether you’re a boss or a partner (like I was up until 2015), you have to have the same passion burning inside of you. As a matter of fact, 27 years after the sale to Publicis, I still have the same entrepreneurial mindset, I still have this idea of conquering things like in BCP’s heyday. Of course, I’m not on the front lines like I was before, but I still have the same drive. It’s in my DNA: when that’s in your blood, you need to give it your all. You also need to think beyond the mandate itself and be able to go farther.

5- La tête chercheuse celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and you are a part of our story. Tell us about your unique story and the impact we had on you.  

Our collaboration had a lot to do with Louise’s personality or, rather, the DNA of La tête chercheuse: her understanding and familiarity of the milieu, her instincts, her honesty and her transparency… Sometimes you guys shook up the idea I had of my own agency. It made me think and opened up possibilities: the talent we needed to recruit to tweak, improve or strengthen the agency. A head hunter’s role is to really understand a client’s environment, but also to know where a client is in their growth cycle, culture, ambitions and goals. How attractive is it on the market? Once a head hunter understands this, they take better action and focus more.

6 –  What do you hope to leave as a legacy?

I would say the thrill of the win, teamwork and a love for brands. Back in the day, when we hired new people, we would welcome them and talk about our company culture, what we hoped to do for our clients and what we expected from them. I often told them to “be curious, almost brash in your demands. Don’t stagnate, stir things up, pitch it even if you break your face doing it. Be ambitious.” That’s what I’d like to leave as my legacy: encouraging people to push themselves farther, fulfill their potential.

7- If you could give your 25-year-old self advice, which might make things different, what would it be? 

Because I am such an intense person, I would tell the 25-year-old Yves to be a little more aware of the sacrifices that come with it, both for him and his environment, without compromising his real nature.

I like throwing myself into projects. You have to believe that you can still do better, that you still have time to try and get better. There’s a trap in trying to roll out an idea too quickly, but you have to always try pushing it beyond the original brief. Because people who stick to the brief and its rules, who stay perfectly within the lines, will never realize their full potential, nor their true conviction. You have to be bold, daring, not be afraid to pull all-nighters because new ideas bubble in that creative ether. These are the kind of ideas that make us re-examine everything and spark something better.

What I’d like to leave as a legacy is the desire to follow your passion. It’s more fun to be a little crazy than to be just average.