Over 200 lessons in creativity and resilience: How the Havas Hustle helped an industry in crisis
Havas Hustle launched in June, an initiative to help media and advertising professionals grow their side hustles in light of COVID-19. Mumbrella’s senior journalist Brittney Rigby speaks to Host/Havas CEO Laura Aldington about the wide-reaching benefits of the conversations and connections that ensued, and to Siobhan Fitzgerald and Suzanne Neate about what their ‘side hustles’ – a sex story platform and cancer research charity, respectively – got out of the program.
Siobhan Fitzgerald’s commitment to The Good Bits, the sex story platform she co-founded, was solidified when she lost her job. In April, her role at M&C Saatchi was made redundant in response to COVID-19. It was just six months after she’d returned from maternity leave, and a week after she says her boss offered to send her to London to speak about the fledgling business he thought was “brilliant”.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing’, because I’d been quite nervous about talking to the agency about it,” Fitzgerald recalls.
“I’m like, ‘Mum and dad, I’m going to London to talk about my sex site, and my boss is paying!’ And then the next week, everything closed down [due to COVID-19] and the rest is history.”
Awesome initiative, it’s great to see how two people working so closely to lead an agency can create something so impressive. Laura and Jon together really created the initiative, shows what a great, close, partnership between account and creative can do.