At Havas Lynx Group, we’ve always been dedicated to delivering great work, but over time the yardstick for measuring ‘greatness’ has evolved.
For the past eight years, we’ve brought together industry leaders and clients to judge the best of our work at our internal awards show. Recently, we’ve seen a shift in the questions our clients ask and it’s clear they’re focused on results now more than ever. We’ve seen this change mirrored across our industry, with a greater focus on effectiveness. Now effectiveness isn’t just a measure we must hit to be successful, it’s one to be celebrated too. It’s making its way into an increasing number of mainstream awards ceremonies, with the introduction of the D&AD Impact Awards and the PM Society Effectiveness Awards.
We’ve been working on what effectiveness means to us, and to our teams – and fundamentally, it’s about making a difference. For us, a successful campaign shouldn’t just be measured by hard stats and business measures, but in the lives and attitudes we change too. We think of it like this: it’s our job to create ‘Impact That Matters’.
What is ‘Impact That Matters’?
Put simply, it’s why we do what we do. We want to create work that makes a real difference to patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals (HCPs) across the world. That’s through show- stopping creative that changes minds, a strategy that refreshes a therapy area, or science that helps patients understand their condition – we’re all working hard to make an impact.
Our campaign with Ethypharm, ‘The Hidden Lifesavers’, proves that this approach can change, and save, lives. Using portraits and quotes from people who use drugs, the campaign urges the community to carry naloxone – a life-saving opioid overdose reversal drug. People who use drugs are often seen as a hard-to-reach community, so we brought our posters to the cities most impacted by drugs, the best place to make a difference. There was a significant increase in people seeking more information and demand for this life-saving treatment. But further than that, we helped to get a life-saving drug into the hands of people who needed it most. This level of impact is seen across our other campaigns too. During the pandemic, we have accelerated recruitment for COVID-19 trials to explore new treatment options for those that can’t be helped by the vaccines. We targeted eligible patients via social, PPC, Google Display, and video and audio platforms, helping our clients complete their trial ahead of schedule. We saved them millions of dollars, while also helping them to get a potentially life-saving treatment to vulnerable people sooner.
‘Impact That Matters’ doesn’t start and end with our client work. With our ‘Health For All’ initiative, we’re changing the way our industry works from the inside out. By looking at equity, diversity and inclusivity (ED&I) in our own agency, we’re ensuring that our work has the right impact on the right people. Our Pride campaigns are a great look at the work we’re doing to make Havas Lynx Group a richly diverse workplace. This approach helps our work become more authentic and impactful for the patients we help.
How we create ‘Impact That Matters’
At every stage, we ask ourselves: Who does this help? Why does this matter? Why should people care? The trick is to keep pushing our work until we can honestly say it makes a meaningful difference in people’s lives.
It’s also about making meaningful experiences. That means looking beyond our audience as simply a patient or HCP. By looking at the ways they interact with the world, through their TV habits, commutes, or even their pub trips, we’re able to target our messages where it matters most.
We’ve created a culture of collaboration to develop campaigns that help both our audience and clients. It’s the harmony of our media, creative, strategy, technology and science teams that makes truly wonderful content.
And with the help of AMP, our media and performance team, we’re able to get that content in front of the people who need it most.
As we move into the future, we’ll continue as an agency to push our work to do some real good. We’re lucky to be operating in healthcare – an industry that touches us all in such profound ways. But we can only achieve that impact if we create work that truly matters.
See our approach in action at havaslynx.com.
Cath Brassington-Richards is the Chief Growth Officer of Havas Lynx Group
