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Going Beyond The First Date, What it Takes to Win a Pitch

Agency Management; A good agency will still lose pitches, by David Hunt

You’ve had all the right signals; she laughs at your jokes, shows an interest in your stories, and your friend said – her friend said – that she said – she liked you. So why, when you asked her to the cinema, was she washing her hair? The life of an agency can at times, resemble those formative teen years. A lot of time, effort & dedication but without fair reward. To be successful there are three key ingredients – timing, chemistry & brilliance (I think you can win with two).

1st date

I’m busy tonight
Having graduated in Design in 2002, I found myself in Vancouver with Tim Woodcock, now GM of HAVAS LYNX London. I had a strong portfolio, excellent qualifications & the confidence of youth. With the help of the local design directory we set about securing employment. As a 22 year old, desperate for a job & a new life, I learnt more about pitching than at any other stage in my career. I’d know who I was meeting, their background, work, interests & ambitions. I’d know which of my portfolio would resonate the best, ideas they would get, reference they would love. The feedback was tremendous & disappointing in equal measure, “Love it!! But the timing…”, “Wow! But at the moment, we just can’t…”. In 2001, the burst of the dot.com bubble had ensured that the US investment had been withdrawn from Vancouver and local agencies were having to re-align their strategy & adopt a more cautious approach to recruitment. Despite, my best efforts there were simply not the opportunities. As I would learn throughout my career, even the most confident candidate, with their favourite ideas & best customer insight can be unsuccessful if the timing isn’t right.

It’s not you, it’s me
Without doubt our best campaigns are powered by chemistry when the client & agency teams work as one, from the medic through to engineer. Total alignment, a shared goal & a rewarding experience. Equally, at the heart of our more painful campaigns is a toxic relationship. A lack of empathy, trust and fragmented communication, will inevitably lead to a flawed deliverable. A defective relationship does not signal a bad agency, it simply confirms that as people – there are those we like & those we don’t. I applaud clients that make decisions based on their instinct, based on the people they meet and a conviction that they can collaborate. A campaign involves a long-term partnership, inevitably with highs & lows, so working with someone that you respect, whose opinion you value and company you enjoy, is a key ingredient for success. Even with perfect timing & great ideas – chemistry can be all important.

I’m just not sure
There are those agencies who believe life is a game of numbers, the more you ask, the more you get. They pitch more, but offer less. They don’t expose themselves, confident in the knowledge that they’ll win a couple. I COMPLETELY disagree. I have been brought-up to always give 110%. My Father-in-law, Carlo Distefano, owns an incredibly successful restaurant group and as he explains, “I work because I love it, and then it doesn’t feel like work”. You must be passionate about an opportunity, you must care about the outcome, you need to be your best. At the heart of every success is always a brilliant idea. It can be the right time and the right team, but without the excitement of an idea there is no vision. 

I ask three things of my teams at HAVAS LYNX:

  • Commit entirely to an opportunity, and deliver a brilliant idea
  • Understand the client, and build a partnership for success
  • Enjoy the creative process, as it just might not be your day

And like all the best relationships, the first date is just the beginning. Each & every day, we need to make our partners happy.

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Understanding who you are, And knowing where you are going

Merger; From the Inside, by David Hunt
Part I, Initial engagement 

June 2012 was huge, after 18 months of careful planning I married my beautiful wife, running to the same timeline Creative Lynx merged with Havas. Both life changing events, both spectacularly exciting, but whilst friends & family can offer advice & council on your marriage, a merger is an altogether more isolated experience.

Having completed an MBO in March 2008, just six months after the credit crunch had started, business was going exceptionally well. We’d experienced year-on-year double-digit growth, collected 16 wins at the PM Society Digital Awards in 3 years and continued to develop a number of industry firsts. At the heart of our success was an exceptionally talented multi-disciplinary team that combined insight, with creativity and innovation. A team that would be at the forefront of our thoughts, every step of the way.

Through sustained growth & success, we saw three opportunities;

  • We were a young agency with brilliant ideas and passion, but we were a young agency that could benefit from a global partner. We needed global experience and sophistication to transform raw talent into global communication experts
  • Inside and outside of healthcare, consolidation is an increasing trend. As a boutique agency it can be seen as a threat or opportunity. We saw this as an opportunity to combine our intimate service with a global footprint
  • We’re based in Manchester, which is brilliant for creative & digital talent. However, in global communications it can be viewed as a province and whilst this perception is changing, before Havas we were being overlooked for the best global briefs

We’ve always grown our business through referrals, recommendations and repeat business. Through experience & intuition we know how to run an agency, we know how to build teams & deliver results, we know our business. But a merger is not about today, it is about tomorrow. Suitors have a passing curiosity in where you have come from, they have a fascination in where you are going. Having previously been focused on the here & now, at the outset of the process we became smarter, more considered, strategic – by simple proximity to potential global partners we were setting out our long-term ambition, designing a roadmap and creating an infrastructure to deliver sustained success.

Following our deal with Havas we have;

Our vision & ideas, originally inspired through the merger process are now becoming reality as a result of the support, infrastructure & expertise that we can now harness.

Having committed to the process & having defined our vision, we engaged with a number of networks. As a result of our success, we had already been approached by nearly all of the global communication networks –  now on our terms, in our time, the courtship could begin. I first met Donna Murphy & Doug Burcin (Global CEOs of Havas Health) in 2011, they were brilliant, the perfect combination of drive & consideration. Someone that I wanted to both work with and learn from. Alongside them was Ed Stapor, with an absolute passion for us and for Havas. Ed was driven by people & relationships, as were we.

As the journey unfolded we met a number of brilliant & respected leaders from across the major networks. Every interaction was another opportunity to learn, engage and shape our plans – they were all worthwhile. Whilst similar in their achievements & proposition, it quickly became apparent that there were significant differences in their approach. I believe that Havas made their decision based on the people & our ideas, the others focused more on numbers & forecast.

Beyond the chemistry that would ultimately shape our decision, Havas also talked more about digital, more about social, more about the future. They didn’t just want to buy the answer, they wanted to help create it. It wasn’t just about our insight, our ideas, our technology, it was about shared expertise, shared resource, a shared vision. It was about creating something unique. It was about creating a global group that would shape & define digital communications in healthcare – HAVAS LYNX.

It has been a fantastic start. We have enjoyed the honeymoon period, it is new, exciting and fun. There will always be highs & lows, it’s a relationship and we are all passionate. However by following our instinct & choosing people over profit, I know that we’ll have an ally when times are tough and an advocate when moving forward.

Part II, Agreeing the finer details

Part III, Business as usual

Part IV, A year in & the lessons I learnt

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Sustained Success, The Mark of a Great Team?

Awards; Behind the scenes of 23 wins in 5 years, by David Hunt

It was September 2009 and we were travelling to the inaugural PM Digital Awards. As is customary, we were debating the merits of our finalists, I’m our toughest critic and had predicted 1 or maybe 2 – we won 6, including both best in show!! Travelling home today, with 23 wins in 5 years I could not be more proud of the whole team & more grateful to our client partners.

I’ve grown up playing football and people talk about the difference between a great year and a great team. To win a title is a great year, to win the title year-after-year is the mark of a great team. In football this sustained success often includes the need to re-invent & evolve the team. As an agency we have done the same. We invest heavily in research & development, we embrace new technologies, and we recruit the brightest digital talent. We don’t stand still, and as a result neither do our clients.

How have we maintained our position as leading innovators in healthcare communications? We have great clients, who share our ambition to innovate. We have great expertise, within a culture of innovation. We have a great philosophy, focused on improving health outcomes.

Our clients don’t have to be digital experts, they do have to be courageous. Based on robust insight, a solid understanding of the regulations and digital technologies, we will make recommendations. But we can only be successful through a strong partnership with our clients. We are at our best, our strongest and our most innovative when working as a team.

We have almost 200 people in Europe, over 250 including LYNX NY, all focused on healthcare. Can you have scale & innovation? Yes, we are talking thousands & not hundreds when this could become an issue. Can you be small & innovative today? Not sure, the number of technologies & platforms is increasing at an unbelievable rate. As an individual you simply cannot be a master of them all, as a result, how can a small agency develop a campaign defined by the brief rather than by their in-house expertise, if it is limited in it’s very nature?

I often talk about a vibrant Manchester digital community, and it’s importance to our success. It also comes with challenges. The most significant of which is talent recruitment. On the surface we are competing with agencies offering websites for Nike, Audi & Virgin, and pharma is just not that cool. However, pharma makes a difference. We work on amazing treatments from HIV to Oncology & Diabetes that transform lives. As an agency, we are united by a common philosophy – Helpful Change. Inspiring us to be better & attract the talent necessary to fulfil that vision.

On the eve of the inaugural PM Digital Awards in 2009, if we would have debated the number of wins over the first 5 years… it certainly would not have been 23, and a period of such sustained success. And for that I am extremely grateful to both our bold clients and exceptional team.

You can watch a short video montage of the HAVAS LYNX 2013 PM Digital Media award finalist entries here: http://www.havaslynx.com/work/video-archive/