During 2021, the Havas Health & You mothership renamed the venerable agency brand formerly known as Havas Life Metro. To make it more geographically simpatico with the other Havas Life brands — such as Havas Life Paris and Havas Life Düsseldorf, among others — Metro was rechristened Havas Life New York and Havas Life Chicago. The NY and Chicago offshoots are now overseen by group president Denise Henry, chief creative officer and chief experience officer Chris Palmer, global chief medical officer Suketu Patel and EVP, customer experience Tanya Schaffer.
But the desire for consistency in nomenclature wasn’t as important as the opportunity to reimagine the brand. This included new positioning (“we are relentlessly committed to creating experiences that help people thrive”) and new values (brilliance, mastery, heart, hustle and badassness).
“Badassness” is generally not a trait associated with the medical marketing business, but Henry says that more agencies should embrace and even celebrate their swagger.
“We believe that we have to break the norms a bit,” she explains. “That badass quality and value is a reminder for us and our teams that we should always be working to create either messages or campaigns or ideas that feel different and can break through the clutter.”
An apples-to-apples revenue comparison may not be entirely appropriate, given the brand reshuffling. Nonetheless, MM+M estimates that Havas Life NY and Chicago saw revenue increase 39%, from $36 million in 2020 to $50 million in 2021.
The growth was driven by a wealth of new business, including high-profile assignments from Pfizer/BioNTech (on their COVID-19 vaccine) and Pfizer (on COVID therapeutic Paxlovid). The agency also added engagements with AbbVie, Sanofi, Zoetis, Amgen and Genentech.
Head count spiked to accommodate the new work, lifting the agency from 180 full-timers at the beginning of 2021 to 307 at year’s end. Key leadership additions included Dave Reidy (managing director/chief creative officer, Havas Life Chicago), Gro Frivoll (SVP, group creative director), Matt Funt (SVP, director of client services), Colin Hunter (SVP, director of operations) and Wendy Steinberg (SVP, management supervisor).
Other changes came in the form of a new emphasis on what the company calls transmedia storytelling. “It’s about having brand ideas that are big and ambitious enough that they can be expressed in a multitude of different ways, depending on the audience and the channel,” Palmer explains.
Havas Life NY and Chicago similarly upped its emphasis on content strategy, Henry adds. “We really do believe that we have to understand our customers to such a degree that we cannot just create an omnichannel approach, but create content that can maximize that engagement in every step along the way,” she notes.
Up next: A continuation of 2021’s hiring binge. “Our belief is that the linear relationship between great talent and great results is absolute,” Palmer says. “We are finding the unicorns and bringing them in.”
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Work from outside pharma you admire…
The New York Times’ Truth is Essential campaign should be an inspiration for us all. It is soulful. It is artful. And it puts the brand in service of a human good, based on human truths. In many ways, we are in the same business; transmitting human benefits through real, human stories. — Palmer
From the June 01, 2022 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
