2021 will mark 20 years of our strategic and creative partnership with Reckitt. Our relationship has grown with new brands, responsibilities and ways of working over the years; built on collaboration, passion, trust and a united vision to build brands that evolve over time but remaining true to their core values. This approach has seen outstanding results for the brands and business growth.

We started with just 4 of Reckitt’s global power brands and are now responsible for 14 of their 18 power brands as well as over 50 localised brands. We’ve built some of the world’s most iconic brands whilst making sure they remain relevant to new audiences' across the globe. 

Working with such a mix of brands requires a flexible creative process - we work across multiple power brands, such as Finish, Vanish and Durex, delivering integrated campaigns ready for adaptation across more than 30 markets. Local brands such as Optrex, E45 and Gaviscon require more tailored, tactical solutions to drive their budget further.

To support these different types of programmes, Havas maintains a network of facilities with in-house capabilities which span film and TV/broadcast, animation, print, digital including social, online content and website development, events, PR and activation, as well as bespoke services to meet the specific needs of each brand.

We operate out of 17 Creative Hubs – each responsible for specific power brands - and service markets across UK, EMEA, APAC, USA and LATAM. In 2019 we developed over 220 campaigns for Reckitt with over 2000 assets produced for use across TV, Print, OOH, Radio and Digital media.

Technology has changed the world so much in the last 100 years. We therefore saw a major opportunity to link Optrex with screens, and so we created "screen eyes" - a world where we’ve all had our eyes physically turn into mobile phone screens. To go with this eerie concept, we created a “Black Mirror” style alternative reality for our brand to live in. TV spots, out of home, and social media followed suit and gave Optrex a fresh new style to go with the ultra modern world we now live in.

The metaphor connects the increasingly common ailment of dry eyes with its cause: the technology we have become so attached to. The work has reverberated across channels and delivered an 8% increase in sales. Most importantly, we impacted the Optrex business. Penetration of Optrex increased by 18.5% after the launch, with penetration of our Dry Eye products increasing by 11%. That wasn’t just with our hero product ActiMist, but the whole Optrex range.

In a shift away from an historical perception of the 60-year-old skincare brand being a remedy for extreme cases of dry skin only, this dynamic repositioning majors on its straightforward, uncomplicated, everyday credentials. It does this through a spokesperson who proudly shares the same fuss-free ethos herself: British boxing icon, double Olympic Champion and E45-user, Nicola Adams OBE.

Alongside a comprehensive Influencer and PR blitz, this large integrated campaign – TV, outdoor, digital, social, influencer, PR – has seen the E45 work deliver a 5% uplift in sales.

Our journey with Gaviscon started with focused targeting of Mums-to-be, identifying pain points and driving need across hyper-targeted digital channels. We are now identifying new groups and we are turning an old indigestion remedy into a product for millennials.

We developed a communications platform, Go On, that brought this switch in brand behaviour to life – appealing to young people’s insatiable desire to keep the night alive without unwelcome interruption from heartburn. We built on a social movement that saw Professor Green use Gaviscon as a hangover cure and are delivering a strategy which amplifies the social noise, creating a new standout solution within a mundane category.

We’ve engaged our Millennial audience in conversation in a key channel – with content gaining over 10,000 likes on Instagram in a matter of days. Not only did we see a 10% uplift in our audience’s agreement with the metric ‘Gaviscon is a brand for me’ in the months after the campaign aired, but one third of those surveyed said they would be more likely to buy Gaviscon as a result.