Royal Mail appoints three agencies to £6m direct marketing account
Royal Mail has appointed Ogilvy One Worldwide, Joshua and Barraclough Hall Woolston Gray to its &£6m direct marketing account.
Craik Jones Watson Mitchell Voelkel and Lowe Direct also pitched for the account.
Royal Mail has previously employed direct marketing agencies and was keen to create a formal roster to work across all its divisions. These include the consumer services, special delivery and stamp services, direct mail, mailsort and response services business divisions.
The roster agencies will work with Royal Mail’s above-the-line ad agency Bates UK and media agency Carat.
The appointments come during a time of increasing competition in the sector. At present, the Royal Mail delivers all letters and parcels in the UK costing less than &£1. But Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers has set up a regulator, the Postal Services Commission, to review the case for reducing its monopoly.
The Post Office Counters, a subsidiary of the Royal Mail, faces a massive loss of revenue over Government proposals to pay benefits – normally collected over the Post Office counter – directly into bank accounts.
About 37 per cent of Post Office network’s turnover comes from benefits-related business, although for some offices it can be as much as 80 per cent.
