8 December 2013

PRESS RELEASE – Osez, an interactive-technology marketing agency (www.osez.co), has gotten off to a promising start in Sherbrooke. The company has been added to Sherbrooke Innopole’s Information Technology and Communications (ITC) key sector.

Founded by two Université de Sherbrooke students—David Bureau and Guillaume Laliberté—Osez (“dare” in English) was formerly known as Daretheweb, a social platform that could be used to launch challenges to the Internet community. But now the “challenge” aspect merely rounds out this new interactive marketing agency’s full line of products and services.

The company particularly excels when it comes to the 15-to-25 age group, a segment of the population that it helps organizations (government departments, NPOs, companies, etc.) reach with their awareness messages about bullying, school violence, dropping out, drinking and driving, student entrepreneurship, or any other worthy cause.

“Other agencies offer a range of different communication tools such as radio or television commercials, posters in bus shelters, and public transportation,” explained President and CEO David Bureau. “At Osez, we have decided to focus our efforts on reaching our audience directly—wherever they are—by using the Web, social media, and apps.”

One of the new agency’s successful projects was developing a communication campaign with the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport du Québec (provincial department of education, recreation, and sports) to promote vocational and technical training. This project reached 80,000 individuals in Estrie and was so effective that a second phase is currently underway. Osez is now in talks with the SAAQ for a campaign on the dangers of the road.

“We believe that we are already well established here in Québec. On the medium term, we would like to make our mark in the Canadian market,” added David Bureau.

When starting up, Osez received financial support from Sherbrooke Innopole, which contributed $12,000 through the New Entrepreneur Fund to the project worth a total of $53,000. The company also received assistance from the Université de Sherbrooke’s Accélérateur de création d’entreprises technologiques (accelerated start-up support for technology-based companies – ACET) and services from Pro-Gestion Estrie.

“We are very proud to support these young entrepreneurs, who are an asset to Sherbrooke’s business community. Their creativity and social involvement are a source of inspiration, especially since Osez’s launch has made it possible to create three full-time jobs in Sherbrooke’s ICT industry,” noted Gordon Harling, Director – Business Development – ICT and Micro-Nanotechnologies at Sherbrooke Innopole.

It should be noted that Osez won the Entrepreneurship, Business, and Economy category at the 2013 Forces Avenir Gala earlier this year.