10 years ago I officially joined Creative Lynx in full-time employment, and I loved the place. 2 years later I attended my first senior meeting at the agency, and marveled at the ambition of becoming 50 or even 60 strong. Last week I hosted my first leadership event, joined by 30 colleagues, responsible for almost 200. Today, I’m excited, expectant and as ambitious as always for the next decade.
Our vision is for HAVAS LYNX to become the recognised leader in healthcare communications, shaping our industry, changing outcomes and sustaining our success, through engaged, creative and expert talent. Great ideas, great outcomes, great talent.
But first we have to be expert in our industry and provision services aligned to a rapidly shifting landscape, whereby stakeholders & agendas can change with the wind. We have to appreciate the evolution of Brand Managers, their background, responsibilities and expectations. Dr Nick Broughton, Jon Vernon and Dan Selby, former clients who are now part of the team, articulated the need for an expert partner that is scientifically sound and who can be trusted to fulfill their promises.
We have developed global strategies for brands at every stage of their life-cycle, delivering significant return on investment. But our past successes count for nothing if we don’t evolve with society. Clients don’t need or want strategic tools for an offline world. They need a competitive advantage through a partner that can combine proven principles with contemporary ideas. Rob Fuller and Dan Weaden, outlined how we develop strategies that permeate everything we create, everything our clients do, and everything their customers feel.
Earlier this year we demonstrated our continuing commitment to creative excellence with the promotions of Jon Chapman & Helen Godley to Creative Directors. We know ideas deliver results, excite customers, inspire us – ideas are central to our philosophy and critical to our future. The team outlined their vision to inspire and grow culture of creativity.
Our future for healthcare innovation was described by Gary Monk & Andy Stopford. We looked at progressive clients and where they will be in 18 months. We considered the ideas for inclusion when considering 2015 brand plans. We discussed many things that will most likely never become reality, but then we have always been more committed than most to research & development. It’s how and why, we define healthcare communications.
We often lack time to think. Day two saw the teams working on business critical issues; how do we inspire our talent? how do we make sure we “get” clients? how do we drive collaboration? and how do we build tomorrow’s generation of leaders? Our ambition is to sustain success through the best talent in the industry.
The event was considered & planned, the blueprint robust & smart, but the success – the success belonged to the energy, expertise & commitment of the participants. I am not sure how Stuart Wilson felt 8 years ago surrounded by his leaders, however I do know, that I was inspired and supremely confident surrounded by mine.
And a final thanks & acknowledgement to One Aldwych London, for a tremendous venue & hospitality.
Dr Nick Broughton is Medical Director of HAVAS LYNX Medical and has a strong interest in the ethics of business and compliance. Nick tries to explore the good and not so good in an industry he cares about. Below he writes about narrative education.
Narrative education: The power of storytelling, the importance of the individual and the start of a radical shift in pharma, by Dr Nick Broughton.
Telling stories
Boston 2013 and a bunch of agency types collect in a rather cramped and faintly dismal hotel function room for an afternoon of whatever it was the meeting agenda said. Into this arena of postprandial apathy steps Dr Rita Charon foremost exponent of narrative medicine and it appears she has forgotten her slides. Nothing appears on the screen behind her save for an artistic abstract featuring, as I recall, purple lines and black rectangles.
With nothing on the screen to stimulate the senses, a confused audience turns its attention to the quietly spoken senior gentlewoman occupying stage front. The lady is talking, clearly though not loudly, and with little, if anything, that could be described as so vigorous as a gesticulation. All I could think (given the piscatorial attention span of the average agency executive) was that I hoped the gags were good. There were no gags.
Dr Charon told stories. Individual patient stories recounted with depth of feeling and detail no one had witnessed before and, unexpectedly, the audience was rapt. These weren’t case studies as beloved by clinicians (49 year old man with three year history of x, had lab results y so I gave treatment z) or patient pictures (photo of healthy looking smiley person with something chronic and life-shortening) as beloved by the more naïve end of the pharma marketing community. These were stories that put disease, healthcare and treatment in their proper place within the context of individual human lives: narrative medicine.
The point here is that it is impossible to understand the impact of an illness on an individual without understanding the individual’s story. The effect on a person of being diagnosed as HIV positive is quite different depending on their marital status, their age, their culture and, most significantly, a myriad of factors particular to them. This is the ‘data’ you need in order to act for that individual; this is the patient story. The art of the good doctor is to understand the narrative so as to be able to understand the disease and target therapy appropriately. Good medicine is narrative medicine, but narrative medicine is also, I would propose, good education. Dr Charon in describing the narrative of a patient with a rare disease indelibly imprinted the memory of its signs, symptoms, treatment and outcome in the memories of one hundred people who, up to that time, had lived in happy ignorance of any such disease.
Yes, stories are powerful but it’s really a bit glib to leave it at that. Storytelling, story appreciation and story learning are hard wired into our brains. We humans consume and repeat stories rapaciously all across our lives. From gossip down the pub, to jokes, to news stories we frankly can’t get enough. We absorb stories to the extent that we can completely suspend reality in pursuit of story enjoyment. When you turn on Coronation Street you (probably) know it’s not real, it’s being displayed on a flat screen for one thing, it’s shot in a studio, the actors appear in the papers, but none of this interferes with your appreciation of the story. It gets more bizarre still – theatre goers watching Shrek (the stage version naturally) rapidly forget their own presence when sat in rows in front of the acting ranks to absorb a story about an eight foot ogre. The truth of the story does not impact their appreciation or indeed their memory of it, and that latter fact is the crux of the medical educational opportunity that good storytelling represents.
The obvious opportunity in storytelling is to educate about disease, treatment and outcomes through the prism of individual patient stories as evidenced by Dr Charon. Good case studies told well on the congress stage can get part way there as they recount the triumphs and tragedies of a diagnostic conundrum, but they lack the medically irrelevant human details they need to make them good stories. Good storytelling needs that characterisation to make you care about the outcome and a good plot to surprise and dismay you along the way. Us humans like a structure to our stories, a set-up, a series of crunch points, a climax, a resolution. If you are Quentin Tarantino you might get away with mucking with plot structure but lesser mortals shouldn’t bother.
A good patient narrative, in effect an anecdote, is a Trojan horse for knowledge that our brains are unlikely ever to be suspicious of, but we must avoid confusion with anecdotal evidence. Patient stories should represent tested evidence and medical fact or give pertinent lessons on the unusual and be clearly labelled as such. This missive is not a plea for Daily Mail medicine.
Of course, such thoughts could be seen as a bit drippy in the hard EBM world we live in today; narrative education as I’m describing here is hardly mainstream. What’s wrong with explaining medical matters in blocks of prose with umpteen graphs and a slug of stats? What do you mean you can’t remember it? Thing is though, underneath all the bluster your top KOL/external expert/therapy area expert (the names vary – the gist is the same) is just the same story loving beast as the rest of us even where medicine is concerned. Telling the tale of your new medicine’s development, the characters, the failures, the blinding insights and the dumb mistakes can be an intriguing cocktail if told well. It has the useful spin off that for many a HCP it provides the first realisation that there are one or two steps for pharma before selling a drug.
Training on storytelling recently I got into in-depth discussion of whether storytelling could ever impact on that most sacred of objects, the clinical paper. Do they have to be quite so dull and unmemorable? I know we all (well ‘piscatorians’ at least) read the abstract and only carry on if there is something positive but it still seems like a wasted opportunity.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you wanted to pick up a clinical paper for the pleasure of reading the story within it rather than as a necessary drudge to find the interesting bits? More seriously, when reading clinical papers is such hard work is it any wonder we naturally ignore those that hold only negativity and non-significance. There are patient consequences to positive bias as our friend Dr. Goldacre has recently been explaining, but unlike him I suspect the issue is grounded more in human disinterest in the uninteresting than pharma malevolence.
The structure of a story, its characters and plot is one thing, but above all a story needs a storyteller. Stephen Fry I suspect could read a train timetable and keep us fixated. Harry Potter would have passed unnoticed into oblivion if his many exploits were described in an SOP. Execution is critical and herein pharma has created its own demons by spending too long supporting too many mediocre medical story-tellers to speak on its behalf.
Times are a changing and, I suggest, it’s about time. Pharma is equipping itself and its medical teams for a radical shift that will involve it speaking more for itself about the medicines it develops, the research it does, the lives it improves and (yes) the profits it makes. The shift is barely underway and will be painfully slow, but as we break ground let’s not forget the whole flaming point of what we do when we speak for ourselves – the patient and their story.
The first ever Lions Health took place on June 13th and 14th 2014, at the famous Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.
No one knew quite what to expect. Who would be there? What would we learn? Who would win? And what would become of the #LionsHealth?
The speakers were mixed. But importantly, when they were good, they were great. Events such as this often have one or two highlights. At #LionsHealth there were multiple. The event was opened by the brilliant @JimStengel. He spoke passionately about creating a culture of creativity & the importance of team engagement. It was impossible to not be impacted by Jim’s ideas & results. They will certainly shape my thinking as we plan for the continuing success of HAVAS LYNX.
Equally great, if a little more unorthodox, was R. John Fidelino. When I sat down for a session labelled, “Chasing Cool in Healthcare”, I was ready to be unimpressed. I’m proud of pharma & would choose significant over cool everyday. Fidelino’s presentation convinced me otherwise. He was meaningful, authentic and immersive – he embodied all the values he felt health communications must represent. He convinced me that perhaps we can have even more significance on people’s lives, if we are just a little cooler.
Not too many people have heard or considered narrative medicine. The always brilliant Dr. Rita Charon mesmerised much of the audience on day two. Having spent much of the event discussing technology, it was very refreshing to then consider content, emotion and stories. Technology is a platform, it’s the experience that counts. As Fidelino had explained, we must be meaningful, authentic and immersive. Dr. Rita Charon talked from the heart of her patient experiences & the importance of relationships. As we look to the future and our digital world, it is clear that HCP interactions will become ever more fragmented, and as such, relationships will be critical to improving outcomes.
We joined Havas to help drive our strategic thinking & creative pedigree. We were delighted to be part of a network that claimed three lions; a bronze, silver & gold. The network has amazing talent & we love the collaboration. It fuels our growth and ambition. We were also delighted for the team at Langland. A great agency, that represented the UK with great success.
So what will become of #LionsHealth? For me, that question remains unanswered. Much worked, but a lot didn’t. Did it meet year one expectations? Yes. Does it need to evolve significantly for year two? Almost certainly. Will we be there to support that growth? Absolutely.
With hindsight, would we still join Havas? If there were no financial incentives, would we still be willing to merge with a global network? Are we proud to be HAVAS LYNX? Yes, yes and yes.
As I have previously discussed on this blog, there are numerous benefits to joining a global network. However in isolation, it is not a silver bullet. It requires considerable effort from both parties to fulfil the potential.
Working together
Our team have really embraced the opportunity that Havas represents. They’ve worked with talent from across the group, learning with every interaction, growing with new perspectives, ideas & confidence. In addition, their return is always accompanied with praise, gratitude & recognition of their passion, creativity & innovation. They are representing themselves, LYNX, Manchester & London.
Have our clients benefited from the Havas Strategic Toolbox? Yes, but not at first. The tools are exceptional, but also seductive. We became guilty of talking too much, and doing too little. But, you learn. Today we use the tools at the right time, for the right results. We leverage best-in-class strategy with creativity, innovation & delivery to exceed our client expectations.
Have our global campaigns benefitted from the global footprint? Absolutely. One of the networks greatest strengths is their ability to curate local opinions, challenges & opportunities. Havas Health invest significantly in Global & Regional meetings, the result is a genuine willingness to collaborate across international boundaries.
Fiscal pressure & the patent cliffs are driving big Pharma to explore potential cost efficiencies. The hottest concept is decoupling, with investment focused towards insight, ideas, intellect. Havas prioritise thought leadership, and we are supported to do the same. Today we invest heavily in research & development; publishing white papers on our insights, piloting smart technologies & establishing strategic partnerships.
And for me? It was a challenge, it was a far steeper learning curve than I had expected. But that’s brilliant, it’s sparked my interest, maintained my passion, & driven my ambition. Like the rest of the team, I have now got a much bigger pitch to play on.
It’s 5 years since the launch of the PM Society Digital Awards. In that time we’ve grown from 50 to 200, from local to global, digital to full-service, from Creative Lynx to HAVAS LYNX.
There is no doubt that the PM Society Digital Awards created an essential platform for our success. They recognised & celebrated our creativity, passion & innovation. They challenged us to improve, and with 23 wins in 5 years, they ensured our exceptional standards were maintained.
However, for HAVAS LYNX it’s now time for a change, a fresh challenge, a new perspective. Instead of the PM Society Digital Awards, this year we’ve decided to enter the Cannes Lions Health awards.
It’s a global competition, derived from the most prestigious awards in advertising. Yet it also comes with unknowns; How will we do? Will we leave empty-handed? How expensive are the G&Ts in the South of France? More importantly, it comes with certainties; we’ve worked harder, pushed our ideas further, and we’ve challenged ourselves to be better.
HAVAS LYNX has a tremendous energy, and when under pressure we excel. We want to be pushed. And we want to be the best. This year we may not be successful, but we’ll be back again next year, better for the experience & even more determined. *fingers crossed*.
The PM Society Digital Awards are still a tremendous event, and I’ll certainly be supporting their team this year and in the future.
HAVAS Worldwide’s latest paper, The New Consumer & The Sharing Economy, outlines a growing sentiment against over consumption. Seven in ten of us believe it to be putting our society and the planet at risk, and the majority feel that current models of consumerism are not sustainable. More than this, we feel weighed down by the sheer amount of ‘stuff’ we own.
Put simply, we’re tired of consumerism and bored of adverts that try to manipulate us by pushing products at us like they’re the answer to life’s problems. We want to be in control, we want to be able to make informed decisions about how we spend our time and money and we don’t want others telling us what to do.
This goes for healthcare as much as consumer markets. Patients no longer expect to merely be prescribed a pill that they unwittingly swallow down once a day and hope for the best. Facilitated by an abundance of information technologies, they are knowledgeable about treatments and want to be actively involved in managing their own health care.
The wealth of monitoring apps across treatment areas (AsthmaCheck, MoodPanda and Diabetes In Check are but a few) is a fair indicator of a general desire for information and authority regarding personal treatment regimens. For financially hamstrung public health providers such as the NHS, this is a welcome trend. Empowering patients with greater control of their treatment reduces the burden of care placed on public providers, and has the potential to garner much better results by actively engaging patients.
So where does pharma fit into all this? The patent model and subsequent relationship with healthcare providers has always followed traditional models of consumerism; ‘we are a drug company and we’ve produced this drug which you can buy from us’. So how can we who work in pharma support and facilitate patients’ desires for greater inclusion and authority in their care and still turn a profit?
Firstly, we need to reshape our relationship with the people we serve. Pharmaceutical companies can no longer act as vendors and must become partners to professionals and patients alike. In doing so, we need to provide solutions, not pills, and increasingly this will mean delivering holistic services and systems of care. ‘Beyond the pill’ solutions are an arena in which there is massive potential for pharmaceutical companies to add real value. At HAVAS LYNX we’ve worked on a series of patient care programmes that have been shown to half the number of days patients spend in hospital.
When pharma partners its expertise with other parties, it opens up a world of new revenue streams. Start-up accelerator organisations such as Healthbox are stimulating the sort of innovation and collaboration that pharma should be looking to more and more. Even amidst the context of Pfizer’s efforts to secure the acquisition of AstraZeneca, pharma companies need to look beyond traditional development pipelines when seeking to expand their offering.
We need to innovate past the sector mainstream and recognise outsider trends, much in the same way that Facebook is making moves to expand beyond social by purchasing of ProtoGeo. There are so many exciting and disruptive technologies being developed that have the potential to transform the lives of patients. Far more than offering supplementary revenue, these areas that currently lie on the fringes of the market are likely to be the mainstay of pharmaceuticals in the future.
Many of my contemporaries, who manage consumer agencies, are often sceptical when I talk about the opportunities, talent & innovation that is prevalent in healthcare communications. They shudder at the science & fear the regulations. They believe that in a world of detail, creativity cannot thrive. I would argue the greater the challenge, the more numerous obstacles, the bigger the risks – the more exciting the creative opportunity. Then there is the impact, improving the lives of patients, their families & friends. We work with some pioneering companies and are incredibly privileged. I believe that we play a crucial role in the next era of health.
You’ve not told your team, your clients are blissfully unaware, the world needs to know & so might your family. Business as usual is the priority, but first comes the news.
First comes the news
Before discussing our communication strategy, I think it’s worth noting the confidentiality & respect with which all discussions took place. I was naturally concerned that our discussions would be leaked destabilising clients & our team. With the odd exception all parties conducted themselves impeccably and for that I’m eternally grateful.
Our number one priority was our staff, we told them first. Despite agreeing to join Havas for all the right reasons; exciting briefs, strategic insight & global support, we were naturally apprehensive. Would they be anxious, confused, cynical? Inevitably there were pockets of concern, but the overwhelming response was excitement. The agency saw it as an opportunity, a new challenge, they saw it as a promotion to the big league. A Manchester agency united with a global ambition. 18 months later we would be crowned Havas Agency of the Year.
Clients, an equal mixture of cynicism, ambivalence, excitement & recognition. To those that were cynical we outlined the benefits the merger would bring with the addition of strategic tools, shared expertise & global footprint. With hard work & determination we have allayed those fears. Some were ambivalent, they knew our values & trusted our judgement. Most were excited, they employed us for our strengths, they forgave our weaknesses, and knew that a global partner would address many of them. Our long-term partners, those that have known us since the beginning, were pleased. They understood all the benefits & helped celebrate our next step.
Having emerged from the process of a merger, nothing could be more refreshing than the day job. The process is both intellectually & emotionally draining. Ironically, across both clients & staff were small pockets which expressed their concern that with our announcement would come distractions. They worried we would lose focus on their business and be consumed by a network. This could not be further from the truth, the distraction was over. The extra work done. In many ways the public announcement, signified back to business as usual.
HAVAS LYNX celebrates 28 years of business this month, and a decade in healthcare digital communications – so what’s changed in the last decade?
Closed-loop marketing (CLM) has never been far from the agenda. Promising more efficient use of resource & more rewarding customer interactions. The ambition has barely changed, but unfortunately neither has the reality. There are some notable exceptions & I am very pleased with our work in this area, but it could & should be so much more. And it will be. The release of the iPad acted as a catalyst for an important shift in ownership from IT to Business. As a result, we are now driven by function & value, not constrained by fear & naivety. In 2014 merely embracing new hardware is not enough. In a world whereby the paper sales aid has become unique, and digital tools are omnipresent, points of differentiation must be earnt through innovation and ideas.
HAVAS LYNX Celebrates 28yrs
It would be hard to categorise the broader Pharma marketing community as innovators or early adopters. But as Facebook has celebrated its 10th birthday, I think we should recognise the progress made in social media. It has always been a hot topic of debate, but now we are starting to see more frequent, more tangible outputs. In addition there has been a noticeable increase in the social media briefs that we receive. The usual tone of caution has been replaced by one of courage, underpinned by a belief in ethics over our previous fascination with rules.
I believe in Pharma sponsored healthcare professional product websites, but I am definitely in the minority. The last decade had seen limited change, limited innovation and unsurprisingly limited success. However, poor execution & a lack of imagination should not render the tool redundant. If I’m looking for a car, I check the manufacturers website before validating the information in social media, the same is true for hotels, new trainers & my next laptop. I don’t discount the company’s website just because they are marketing to me, in the same way doctors don’t discount reps. It is true, the product website is not a silver bullet, but with renewed passion & a dramatic improvement in user experience, it can play an important role in integrated campaigns.
In 2004 I wasn’t addicted to my mobile. I didn’t use it for news, I didn’t ask it’s opinion on the new local restaurant & I didn’t use it to broadcast my opinions. The biggest change in the last decade is EVERYONES digital behaviour. It is absurd to think that healthcare professionals use digital for finance but not research, that they use digital to follow news but not medicine, that they connect offline but not online. Today, more than ever, we are not limited by our customer, but by our imagination.
Emergence of a great team? High profile account wins? Excellent financial performance? Awards? 18 months in and HAVAS LYNX London have ticked every box.
The team is spread over two locations. I’m sure management consultants would describe it as on-shoring and outline the benefits in cost efficiencies. Being very smart, they would also talk about even greater savings with alternate locations – quality is not everyone’s priority. Quality is LYNX London’s number one priority. We describe it as an agency, a modern agency, defined by expertise and not geography. Combining the creative & digital pedigree of Manchester, with the strategic and scientific expertise of London. We know the benefit is a best-in-class service.
HAVAS LYNX London
The teams don’t share an office, rarely take lunch & have entirely different accents, yet they are tight knit & getting closer, creative & getting bolder, innovative & getting smarter. At the heart of their success are the people. From junior developers in Manchester through to account directors in London, the team is blessed with intelligence and drive.
The team that a client sees is important, but so too are the experts behind the scenes. Last year HAVAS LYNX London collected a number of high profiles accounts, through their exceptional service and high quality product. The team front-of-house and the guys in the kitchen aligned to the needs of the client. And fiercely determined too.
But it would be wrong to say it has all been easy, it has not. They have to make every communication count, but in a world when meetings are often bloated & ineffective perhaps this represents another strength. The creative leads are not just across the office, but equally they have few disruptions and an atypical opportunity to focus. Cultures are more difficult to align, but more rewarding when they do. Maybe it is harder, evidence would suggest it’s certainly worth it.
Since 2009 and a record award haul of 6 wins at the PM Digital Awards, HAVAS LYNX have had unprecedented success at industry events. Before that first glorious night, I remember attending countless events without success. As the saying goes, good things come to those that wait. It is with a slight twinge of jealousy, that LYNX London only had to wait 12 months to win their first significant gong – Digital Campaign at the PM Society Awards. Entirely deserved.
But their greatest achievement? Every member of the team contributing to a culture of success. From the top to the bottom, from the Manchester-based studio to the account team of London, from ping-pong to pitches, they want to win every time (and so far do).
in full-time employment, and I loved the place. 2 years later I attended my first senior meeting at the agency, and marveled at the ambition of becoming 50 or even 60 strong. Last week I hosted my first leadership event, joined by 30 colleagues, responsible for almost 200. Today, I’m excited, expectant and as ambitious as always for the next decade.
