Royal Mail ads hail success

Royal Mail has taken out full-page ads in the national press to announce that it is finally “delivering” targets. The organisation has announced annual profits of &£537m, with Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton saying it was a “fantastic turnaround”.

The press campaign, created by Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO, features an apology for the disruption caused to the postal service by the organisation’s three-year turnaround plan.

The ads, which feature in all national newspapers as well as some key regional titles yesterday and today (Wednesday), say “Royal Mail is now delivering its best quality of service for a decade.” They add that the state-owned operator delivered 92.8 per cent of first-class letters on time between January and March, 0.3 per cent above target.

It emerged this week that Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier was paid almost &£3m last year, making him the UK’s highest-paid public sector employee. Although the Royal Mail is at last starting to hit its targets, news of Crozier’s bumper package comes at a time when complaints about deliveries are still rising dramatically.

Crozier, a former chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi and the Football Association, was rewarded for turning &£1.5m-a-day losses three years ago into &£1.5m-a-day profit.

Turnover reached a record &£8.96bn, while 84 million letters a day were handled – 1 million more each day than in the previous 12 months. The &£537m profit was a 144 per cent rise on the previous year’s &£220m.

Last month, Marketing Week exclusively revealed that Royal Mail has poached Orange vice-president of global brand Alex Batchelor to be its new marketing director (MW April 16).

Batchelor replaces Paul Rich, who moves to another senior position.