Havas Lynx Manchester: Strength in (small) Numbers
Draper, Sterling, Holloway, Pryce and Cooper. These are the mini “task forces” that make up the Havas Lynx offices in Manchester. After just three days into the #havaslofts program, I have gotten a good sense of how Havas works over here, and it has certainly peaked my interest.
While each sub-division has their own unique personality, culture, quirkiness, and areas of expertise, they all share quite a few things in common too. First and foremost, they are truly mini task forces capping around 30–35 people at most if I had to estimate (don’t quote me on that though ;)). This seems to make room for that agility and efficiency that we, as an overall industry, are always striving for. On top of that, the structure seems to contribute to all teams having an infectious passion and pride for the work they do.
After meeting with a few of the lead creatives of the agency, that passion and pride came through even stronger as I was taken through some recent case studies spanning across a diversity of areas such as skin cancer, MS, organ donation, Psoriasis, and Juvenile idiopathic arthritis, across print, traditional digital media, social media, and more.
Not only are the teams particularly proud of this recent work, but many campaigns will be nominated for awards at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival.
To top it all off, they do seem to put a lot of work and investment into their people, which I can proudly say is a constant across the Havas network based on my experience. Like other offices, they offer their own version of internal knowledge sharing and learning opportunities, called #LXAcademy. On my second day, I was able to grab a spot in the #Wedontdobland session where we analyzed and discussed the design process, recent ads in the media, and the common pitfalls that pharma can be niched into or fall into at times. We even went as far as to sign a pledge that we would avoid clichés at all costs, and you better believe I signed on to that.
Although the first three days here have been a whirlwind of sorts, they have been a great way for me to jump right in and immerse myself into this way of working and culture, and expose myself to the great work that results. Looking forward to the coming weeks to continue on this journey and capitalize on the future learning and sharing opportunities that it has to offer.
