Taking Steps Back, Moving Forward
After almost two weeks here at Havas Lynx Manchester, I have gotten to see some amazing work that the teams have produced here over the past year, some of which are even currently submitted to the Cannes Festival, occurring next week, June 18th-22nd in Paris, France.
One benefit of being here for an extended period of time, is that I not only get to see the case studies and Cannes awards submissions, but I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet with the teams and go through the process of how they got to the end product, what it took to get this amazing work approved by the clients, and out in the market. I have truly gotten a “peek behind the curtain.”
As I have been meeting with teams and getting background on the work, I have tried to draw some consistencies in the processes, and overall approach to those projects. A couple things I have noticed:
One: They had found some way and some time to take a full step back, think about what was being asked, and think about different ways to approach or come at the project. This is never an easy task, and sometimes not possible with timelines, but this was something consistent across the initiatives.
Two: After taking this step back, they had challenged the client to do something outside of their comfort zone, and above and beyond what they had initially asked for.
Three: In order to challenge the norm and the initial ask, they had worked with the fully integrated team (creative, account, strategy, medical) to provide a foolproof rationale to back up what they were recommending.
As you can probably tell by the rest of this post, the results were quite impressive.
For example, a client came to us with an ask to demonstrate their commitment in organ donation treatment and drive prescriptions of their product. Instead of going in and doing exactly what was asked, we took a good look at the different ways to demonstrate commitment, and launched the below campaign. This raised awareness of the problem, urged people to take action, and in turn demonstrated a huge commitment to the cause.
From there, the team has not stopped, and has found even more ways to extend the campaign and movement to reach even more people, including the “Speed Donating Singles” website. With the help of music artists around the EU, this site allows people to mix and create tracks, donate them and help to create more noise around the cause, which is all targeted to getting more people signed up to be organ donors, and save lives.
So, the team was able to take a step back, take a risk and recommend a unique, provoking campaign that has now made a lot of noise in the space, and made a huge impact. I truly look forward to see where else this campaign can be taken to make an even bigger impact.
For more information about how to get involved in this particular campaign, please visit http://speeddonating.com/
