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PMGroup Communiqué Communications Consultancy of the Year

Agency of the Year, by David Hunt

The judges said, “Havas Lynx are not just preparing for the future, they are creating it.”

I agree, but not in isolation. Alongside our team, it takes great clients too. We’re incredibly blessed to work alongside some brilliant industry leaders, from all across the globe. Some have been with us since the beginning and the advent of the tablet-pc & closed-loop marketing. Others are new to the industry, but they share our vision & passion for pharma to make a meaningful & sustained impact on society. New, old, familiar, returning, former; we’re grateful to all of our clients and the role they’ve played in making us great.

We’re also very grateful to Havas Health and in particular Donna Murphy & Ed Stapor. A Global CMO of Top 10 Fortune 500 Company commented, “Your industry spends a fortune buying big digital companies, makes them worse, loses the talent, leaves them in a silo and fails to integrate them and deliver their expertise to us.” This could not be further from the reality of our transition from Creative Lynx to Havas Lynx. We’re faster, stronger, better, and significantly so. We’ve matured from a local digital shop to a global communications agency. Havas have been a catalyst for our development, ensuring that we can now boast scientific, strategic and creative excellence, alongside our unparalleled digital expertise.

From a young age, I came to understand the importance of a great team. Expertise, passion, diversity and a collective commitment are the cornerstones of our success. We mix recognised industry leaders with remarkable graduates, decorated creatives with proven engineers, and scientists with strategists. 95% of our staff are proud or very proud of the work they produce, and I am equally proud of them.

The final ingredient is the Havas Lynx Senior Team; myself, Neil Martin, Steve Nicholas, David Whittingham, and Tom Richards. With the exception of Tom, who is a recent addition, we have been together for a decade, enjoying almost all of it. It’s a great team, and one that I’m incredibly honoured to be part of. It’s reassuring to know that when times are hard, you are surrounded by experts & leaders that stand shoulder-to-shoulder. And equally, when times are good that you can celebrate with friends.Communique

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#LXAcademy Awards

At the heart of an agencies success are the people. Heritage, structure and framework are simply the platform. As a business we are committed to attracting, developing, engaging and retaining the very best talent. The #LXAcademy was conceived to build core expertise, and inspire imagination, curiosity & courage, across science, creativity & technology. The #LXAcademy Awards was a celebration of everything we have all achieved in 2014 – it was our finest night.

The submissions were exceptional & really quite humbling. The team behind Care4Today combined insight & innovation, with passion & belief. Their presentation belied their engineering background & claimed the Grand Prix award. The team driving Novartis Dermatology deservedly won Creative use of Technology, as we continued our track record of being digital pioneers at EADV. Combining consumer technology with pharma insight, they quickly & efficiently created a unique point of difference in a competitive environment. Having clocked up 320,000 miles for AstraZeneca and revolutionised their Japanese market, the team of the year was entirely deserved. Not everyone can travel the world & consistently bring energy, ideas & value. One of my personal highlights for 2014 is our partnership with Lundbeck, we share vales & ambition, and I was delighted that our team recorded best online campaign, it demonstrated superb alignment of insight & innovation. It also demonstrated a client-agency relationship working in tandem, towards a shared goal, delivering results. #SKINTOLIVEIN rightly won campaign of the year, described by a Big Pharma CEO as the most progressive digital campaign in their portfolio, there was little more for the judges to add. However it was also impossible to ignore the effort, expertise & collaboration required to make something so unique and of so much value to patients & pharma.

There’s a buzz in the agency & the awards epitomised this. It has also set expectations for 2015, with regards to #LXAcademy, the awards and #LYNXLife, which is scheduled to be launched in January. Our number one priority is our talent, we believe that the rest follow. Our staff retention is at 90%, we receive 120 applicants a week and 50 people have celebrated 5 years with the business. HAVAS LYNX is a great agency with great clients, and the #LXAcademy Awards were a fitting celebration.

None of this would be possible without @carlwalker & Lisa Jones, driving the #LXAcademy, supported by the amazing internal experts and our external thought leaders. And a special thanks for organising the awards to Sam Luk & the LX  Ambassadors.

You can watch some of our inspiring LX Academy thought leadership sessions on our Youtube channel and see photos from the night on facebook and twitter10356266_785876774803420_9066949141867259432_n

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#LionsHealth – A great few days in the South of France

The first ever Lions Health took place on June 13th and 14th 2014, at the famous Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.

Cannes

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.

 

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A fresh start

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.growth