LONDON & JOHANNESBURG – UK-based Lynn Group and South Africa’s Razor PR have formed a global strategic alliance, Impact, to provide strategic and creative communications support to clients of both agencies.

The alliance will allow each agency – both PRovoke Media EMEA agencies of the year in 2022 – to provide complimentary offerings to the other’s clients, developing communication programmes that marry Lynn’s specialism in behavioural science and combating misinformation with Razor’s strategy and creative offers.

Razor, launched in 2020 by partner and MD Dustin Chick as part of M&C Saatchi Group, will become the first communications agency in South Africa to offer a behavioural science offering, as well as access to a dedicated misinformation management unit.

Lynn – which was founded by Shayoni Lynn in 2019 and restructured last year into three practice areas: Lynn Health, Lynn Planet, and Lynn Change – will now offer enhanced reputation and creative capabilities.

Lynn said: “As our clients continue to face complex, global challenges, we see a very real demand on us as agency partners to provide more innovative, and often pre-emptive, communication solutions that help our clients navigate this complexity. From integrating a true understanding of human behaviour into strategy development and creative communications planning and delivery, to helping organisations fight back against rising threats from mis- and disinformation, clients’ needs today are more sophisticated than ever before.

“This alliance creates a unique global solution to these challenges and once again positions both agencies at the forefront of strategic communication and reputation together. At the heart of this alliance is an alignment on values, purpose and shared belief that through ethical and impactful communications, we can create sustained positive impact in the world, being better and doing better.”

Chick – whose agency recently announced it had developed an AI governance framework that could be used by the whole industry – said the alliance had been in test phase since March this year and added: “It is the ability to answer the modern brief that makes this partnership so exciting. Increasingly we see a demand for solutions that require not the usual proven expertise.

“No longer is it about the holding statements and press releases; rather it’s about offering communications interventions that work in our “post-truth” world, where managing mis-, dis- and mal-information creatively, critically, and comprehensively helps brands connect with their stakeholders and achieve measurable outcomes.”