Simply put, the creative idea was for prospective talent to text Harry an idea in 6 lines or less that would change the world.

Why social good?

For Harry, if you have the gift of creativity, you should use that gift for good, because what's more inspiring than using your talents and ideas to help the Earth?

Channeling his values of happy, hungry, curious, Harry was looking for ideas that not only would help our clients solve real business challenges, but also impact change.

Prospective interns would be able to double down to get the chance to work on client accounts but also get the opportunity to put their "social good" ideas into action.

We created an application process where candidates could pitch an idea directly to our CCO Harry Bernstein via text message, regardless of their discipline (account, strategy, creative, etc). To launch our call for interns, we filmed our CCO tagging a wall in NYC with his mobile number, and posted it on Instagram and other social channels, asking interns to text him an idea around global change. We also had him handwrite flyer-like ads that were scanned and placed on billboards, bus shelters, and wild postings around 14 cities across the US. The application process was open for two weeks, and during that time, our CCO answered each text, provided feedback, and got to know each candidate in the process – making recruitment more personal than before. After vetting the best ideas, our CCO followed up with select candidates and offered them the internship.

Within a two-week submission window, Harry received over 2000 texts that spanned 47 states in the US (including several US territories), and 43 countries (and 400 texts in the first day alone).

Harry made it a priority to answer the texts as often as he could such as during meeting breaks or after hours.

We received countless ideas, applause for our program idea, and even suggestions on how to improve the industry. By sidestepping the traditional recruiting process, we we were able to reach the highest group of talent in our agency’s history, with a prospective talent pool that represented 26 different majors and 83 universities across the globe.

In the end, we found 40 interns to fill our 2018 class across all disciplines that start the program in June, and we’re going to help bring the best ideas to life.

For this internship class, we wanted to democratize the process to find talent — this wasn't about your resume, it wasn't about what school you went to, it wasn't about your past. This campaign was to discover talent outside of normal pools. It didn’t matter if an applicant was fresh out of graduate school, looking for a career change, or just trying to figure out what they wanted to do in life. This was designed to be an even playing field for anyone looking to get into advertising and help us find new and great talent for the agency and our clients. The program targeted students at 14 college campuses across the country (including schools like NYU, Penn State, SCAD, SVU, VCU Brandcenter and more.) To further promote the internship draft, Harry also spread the word on his own Instagram account, @harryb, which helped to further expand our applicant search.

Summer internships at an ad agency may sound easy to get. But for many, the real struggle is getting a foot in the door. The dreaded cover letter and lack of visibility to management makes the application process a huge pain. What if all it took was texting the CCO on their phone?

Inspired by the fact that 75% of millennials chose texting over talking, Harry Bernstein, Chief Creative Officer at Havas New York, decided to break the intern recruiting game, cut out the middlemen, and make the process personal by asking rising talent to text him directly.

The end goal was to find 40 interns.

Harry's iPhone was integral to the "Text Harry Bee" internship program as it was the centerpiece of text exchanges with prospective talent and our vehicle for promotions and creative executions on social.

In a nutshell, Harry's phone was the beacon for this whole program.