Member Article

Trio of Communiqué Awards for Manchester's Havas Lynx

A global healthcare communications agency, with offices in Manchester, London and New York, is celebrating again after collecting a trio of titles at the Communiqué Awards.

Havas Lynx, which earlier this month was named Cannes Lions Healthcare Agency of the Year, beat off hundreds of international rivals to secure the ‘Writing Excellence’, ‘Excellence in Corporate Communications’ and ‘Excellence in Communication Through Creative Execution’ accolades.

Held in London, the awards celebrate the best achievements in healthcare communications, recognising programmes, initiatives, individuals and teams that have made a real difference to patients, stakeholders and influencers, with a changing panel of over 100 industry experts completing the rigorous judging process.

The agency’s first success came for its ‘The World vs. MS’ online patient initiative, which was designed to get individuals discussing the impact of Multiple Sclerosis on their brains with their neurologist. It engaged MS experts and the people living with MS, asking them to share their daily challenges with a view to encouraging the MS community to submit their solutions.

With over 1.8 million engagements, the world voted for ‘The BladdeRunner app’ as its winning idea and this is now in development with the potential to drastically improve millions of lives.

The second win of the night came for Havas Lynx’s ‘Brain Emoji’. This was born from The World vs. MS campaigns continued efforts to turn problems into solutions, creating the world’s first pharma sponsored emoji that has kick-started vital conversations around brain health in MS. The emoji has already been shared 250,000 times on Twitter.

David Hunt, Havas Lynx CEO, was delighted with the outcome: “The Communiqué Awards are highly regarded in the Healthcare Communications world so to win one award is some achievement…to win three for our pioneering work is incredible

“To collect these titles in the same month as being awarded Cannes Lions Healthcare Agency of the Year is fantastic. We are on a real high right now and are delighted with our success. As an agency, we work tirelessly to improve global healthcare for all and these awards are testament to the dedication and talent of the whole team.”

He went on to add: “We continue to invest heavily in our teams and wider agency infrastructure at every office from our Headquarters in Manchester to operations in London and New York. From our graduates, right through to our senior management team, our commitment to nurturing talent via ongoing training and development, is fundamental to our success, transforming healthcare systems and securing these global awards in the process.”

Havas Lynx was also successful in one of the new Communiqué Awards categories, taking home the ‘Excellence in Communication Through Creative Execution’ accolade for its ‘Ask for Clear’ campaign.

This targeted people with moderate-to-severe psoriasis, a debilitating condition where, for many, clear skin is the goal. After many setbacks patients no longer think this is achievable, but the good news is that – thanks to advances in dermatology – it is now possible.

Lou Shipley, Creative Director for the campaign, said: “Using creativity to disrupt the psoriasis category and change lives for the better is already an incredible achievement. However, to also be recognised for this at Communiqué with an award for Creative Excellence is a tremendous reward. I’m very proud of the whole team and the campaign is a great demonstration of what can be achieved when we strive to push our thinking.”

Havas Lynx has grown from a small creative agency formed in the Northern Quarter of Manchester into a global healthcare communications agency, offering campaign development, brand strategy, capability building and education services.

It celebrated its 30th birthday in 2016 and over the last two years has grown almost 20%, creating over 60 new jobs to take its global workforce to over 300.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .