Pmnicom agencies set to win £40m Royal Mail

The Omnicom consortium, comprising Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO, ProximityLondon and Wolff Olins, is in pole position to pick up Royal Mail’s &£40mintegrated brand marketing business.

The consortium will be working exclusively with Royal Mail until the end ofthe month when a final decision will be made on whether or not to appointthe group.

The three other consortia – J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy One and Landor; GreyWorldwide London and Joshua; and M&C Saatchi, Saatchi Village and Lida -have not been taken through to the next round.

Beleaguered advertising incumbent Bates UK was told last month that it hadnot made the final shortlist (MW April 3).

Royal Mail head of marketing services Paul Troy says: ‘We have made adecision to take the Omnicom group forward to the next stage, but we havenot made a final decision on the account.If the Omnicom group fails to deliver commercially and creatively’ then Royal Mail may return to oneof the agency groups on the shortlist or start with another agency groupfrom scratch.

Royal Mail has said all along that it wants just one agency group to handlean integrated advertising and marketing strategy. However, a largeproportion of its spend will be on direct marketing and it is not clearwhether more than one DM agency will be needed to handle the capacity.

The loss-making postal carrier, which is axing 9,000 of its 30,000-strongworkforce, last week increased the price of first- and second-class stampsby one penny in order to raise much-needed funds.