Glob­al online adver­tis­ing agen­cies have a new arrival to con­tend with in the shape of Havas Lynx, a fresh­ly cre­at­ed glob­al agency that has just been launched by the French health­care mar­ket­ing firm, Havas Health.

The new shop is made up of two pre­vi­ous Havas acqui­si­tions, Euro RSCG Life 4D and the UK group Cre­ative Lynx, both of which share a cul­ture root­ed in dig­i­tal media.  Accord­ing to Havas, Life 4D achieved a well-deserved rep­u­ta­tion as a thought leader in the dig­i­tal health field, while Cre­ative Lynx pio­neered cross-plat­form health and well­ness mar­ket­ing, includ­ing mobile and social media as well as closed-loop marketing.

Havas Lynx forges new dig­i­tal links

With that back­ground, account man­agers, copy­writ­ers and art direc­tors won’t be sur­prised to hear that the new Havas Lynx out­fit will have will have a strong dig­i­tal focus.  It will be run­ning its oper­a­tions through offices based in Lon­don, Man­ches­ter and New York.

The pri­ma­ry aim of the new ad agency is to achieve bet­ter results and new rela­tion­ships by deploy­ing infor­ma­tion, ser­vices and influ­ence to enhance con­nec­tions between cus­tomers, health care pro­fes­sion­als and brands.  And it’s already signed up an impres­sive list of clients, which so far include AstraZeneca, GE, GSK, Novar­tis, Janssen and John­son & Johnson.

In the US, Havas Lynx will be head­ed by Lar­ry Mick­el­berg, the group’s first pres­i­dent, while in Europe, four co-direc­tors will run the show – Steve Nicholas, Neil Mar­tin, Dave Whit­ting­ham and David Hunt.

Mick­el­berg, who is also chief dig­i­tal offi­cer and a part­ner at Havas, said:

“While we have a full ser­vice offer­ing, the nature of the work we do is much more about cre­at­ing liq­uid expe­ri­ences that tra­verse the health ecosys­tem – tech­nolo­gies, places and health needs – as opposed to clas­sic brand posi­tion­ing and messaging.”

An agency look­ing way beyond pharma

He clear­ly intends the new firm to play beyond the phar­ma sec­tor.  The com­pa­ny plans to tar­get mhealth and health ser­vices, devices, gyms, man­u­fac­tur­ers, retail­ers “along with oth­er new entrants into the new health sys­tem,” he added.

Havas Lynx Europe’s client ser­vices direc­tor, Steve Nicholas, said that the firm “will com­bine indus­try-lead­ing strat­e­gy and insight with award-win­ning cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion, to deliv­er best-in-class glob­al campaigns.”

The part­ner­ship, he added, deliv­ers a gen­uine glob­al foot­print, com­bin­ing “glob­al think­ing with local insight.”