We Create
Therefore
We Are

With Live Engagement, we leverage our
combined thinking and creativity
to improve the way people connect and communicate.
That allows us turn ideas into results in real time.

About

What is live engagement

Live Engagement is our way of answering the immediacy, proximity, and speed of today's communications environment. Our Live Engagement strategies help you create and sustain real-time relationships with your customers at any relevant touchpoint by maintaining live signals for your brands. Because in our fast-paced and fragmented world, if a brand isn't live, it's dead.

The flow of information and the assets associated with Live Engagement continuously adapt and evolve as innovation or insights emerge, and as new ways of engaging are brought to light.

Live Engagement is a proven process powered by four basic characteristics.

We're Hungry

We thrive on challenge. We're relentless in the pursuit of new insights, deeper inspiration, more comprehensive knowledge, and are continuously hunting for innovation and the cutting edge.

We're Gutsy

We have the confidence to speak our minds and we have the courage to take action. Thanks to our entrepreneurial nature, we take intelligent risks, together, in partnership with our clients.

We're Ready

We always do our homework. We place heavy emphasis on strategic planning, which gives us both a long-term perspective needed to act and the ability to react more quickly in the short term.

We're Family

Our success is based on interdependence. We share a common vision and work as a cohesive, integrated team with clearly defined roles. We also enjoy a quality of professional life unlike any other.

Live Engagement

Live ideas

We build a core of experts whose collective intelligence and creativity generate ideas that are:

Meaningful
Powerful
Coherent

Live brands

We analyze the market context
a brand-focused strategy that is:

Insightful
Participative
Inspiring

Live results

Our ideas engage the brand with the right communities in the right way at the right time, and generate results that are:

Measurable
Predictable
Optimized

Entrepreneurial culture

Cossette has always played by its own rules. It's what makes our culture unique; one built on a foundation of independence, innovation and fearlessness. This entrepreneurial culture has spurred our growth and defined our success. And it keeps us HUNGRY for more.

Our entrepreneurial culture has been a game changer from the start. After just two years, Cossette strayed from its Quebec City roots and ventured into the much bigger and highly competitive Montreal market, which was, and still is, considered the hub of Quebec's advertising industry.

Our boldest entrepreneurial move took place in 1999, at a time when most other large, Canadian-owned advertising agencies were aligning with multinational partners. Once again, Cossette bucked the trend by remaining independent and going public to secure the financing it needed to fuel expansion into international markets.

Corporate structure

Corporate structure

As of 2010, Cossette is part of Vision7 International, a Canadian-based holding company led by Claude Lessard, Chairman and CEO.

Vision7 is among the top 25 international marketing communications companies in the world, with some 1,400 employees in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Vision7 International has two operating divisions: Cossette, a fully integrated agency which occupies a leadership position in Canada, and EDC, a group of discipline-specific marketing agencies.

Cossette brings value to its clients by providing various communications services in one simple integrated offering. Cossette has offices in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax.

EDC is a global network of discipline-specific agencies, including award-winning international agency brands Dare Digital, MCBD, Elvis Communications, PainePR, Optimum, Band & Brown, RocketXL and Jungle Media. In addition to its offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, EDC also has Canadian operations.

Learn more

Our history

  • 1972

    The beginning

    Claude Lessard and five young partners invest their own money to launch Cossette Communication-Marketing in Quebec City.

  • 1974

    The big city

    Cossette opens in Montreal.

  • 1977

    McDonalds

    Cossette wins the McDonald’s Restaurants account in Quebec City.

  • 1980

    Public Relations

    Cossette, already offering advertising, graphic design and promotions, adds to its growing list of marketing disciplines by expanding into the PR business with the launch of Optimum Public Relations.

  • 1981

    Toronto, here we come

    Cossette sets up shop in a mid-town brownstone on Avenue Road in Toronto’s fashionable Yorkville district. Cossette pitches the national Renault account a month later. The business is awarded in January 1982 and Cossette Toronto becomes a reality.

  • 1985

    The expansion continues

    Cossette opens an office in Vancouver.
    Air Canada invites Cossette to pitch for its business and the agency wins the account, responding a dynamic TV campaign and innovative billboards. Meanwhile, across Quebec, Cossette charms consumers and wins acclaim for a breathtaking campaign contrasting bleak Canadian winter experiences with idyllic Club Med settings.

  • 1993

    Agency of the year

    Influential trade publication Marketing Magazine names Cossette Agency of the Year.

  • 1994

    Digital era

    Cossette develops another new offering: Cossette Interactive.

  • 1997

    Welcome to the USA

    Cossette makes its first foray into the United States, opening an office in Washington.

  • 1999

    Going public

    Claude Lessard makes a speech to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, establishing Cossette’s destiny for the new Millennium by announcing a public share offering to follow three months later. On June 18, 1999, shares begin trading on the Montreal and Toronto stock exchanges.

  • 2003

    Across the ocean

    Cossette establishes a foothold in Europe with the acquisition of London-based Identica, a world leader in design and brand management. 

  • 2004

    European Public Relations

    Cossette continues its European expansion, and adds public relations to the European portfolio with the acquisition of the Band and Brown Group, also a London-based company that services clients across Europe.

  • 2005

    Growing in Europe

    Cossette rounds out the convergent package in Europe by buying a 51% stake in Miles Calcroft Briginshaw Duffy (MCBD) and its subsidiary Elvis Communications, thereby adding world-class advertising, sales promotion and direct marketing to its European operations.

  • 2007

    More and more digital

    Cossette continues its expansion in the U.K., and extends its current promise of making digital relevancy a major corporate priority by acquiring Dare Digital, a leading digital agency based in London.

  • 2009

    Return to private ownership

    Cossette returns to private ownership when Connecticut-based private equity firm Mill Road Capital purchases a majority interest in Cossette. Cossette is still majority-owned by Mill Road Capital, with management also owning a significant share.

  • 2010

    Vision7 International

    Vision7 International is created as a Canadian-based holding company led by Claude Lessard, Chairman and CEO, to shape and supervise three new independent and separate groups—Cossette, EDC and V7 Media. Cossette names Brett Marchand as CEO. Meanwhile, Cossette acquires Mobilito technologies, strengthening its positioning in the digital industry.

  • 2011

    A new era

    The new, nimbler Cossette begins to make its mark early, quickly making a name for itself as a leader in integrated marketing in Canada. Cossette's refreshed image along with its bold promise of “Live Engagement” and its new offer are introduced to the industry through the late summer launch of a lively new digital platform and website, www.cossette.com.

  • 2012

    Avant-garde

    To build connections with the best in up-and-coming start-ups and cement its place in the avant garde of the industry, Cossette welcomes start-ups Sweet IQ, See Vibes and Password to its incubation space in Montreal.

    Cossette acquires Top Voice, a social media technology allowing brands to identify supporters and influencers.