Havas Helia bags MarketReach brief

Royal Mail MarketReach has appointed Havas Helia to develop its Mailmen marketing activity, designed to get both clients and agencies to wake up to the joys of the humble mailshot.
The agency will take over from Publicis Chemistry, which was appointed two years ago and came up with the strategy that saw the launch of Mailmen in January this year.
Despite being credited with boosting uptake of the medium – direct mail revenue achieved a 5% growth for 2014/15, reaching £1.167bn – it is understood recent top level changes at Publicis Chemistry have, in part, fuelled the search for a new agency to take the campaign forward.
During the past few months Publicis Chemistry chief executive Mike Welsh and executive creative director David Prideaux have both left. However, the agency will continue to work on Royal Mail customer marketing and CRM activity.
Although Havas Helia was not directly on Royal Mail’s roster, its parent group has worked for the postal operator for some time; Havas-owned media agency Arena recently picked up a major slice of group business. Other agencies on the roster include Tangible, Proximity London and M&C Saatchi.
The final work from Publicis Chemistry launched last week, promoting MarketReach’s latest in-depth research programme, This Time It’s Personal. The study is based on 3,000 respondents and probes six sectors – financial services, retail, public sector, charities, travel and telecoms/utilities. It was carried out by independent agency Quadrangle.
The campaign features senior clients such as AXA Insurance marketing and sales director Alasdair Stewart, easyJet group commercial director Peter Duffy and Homebase director of brand and marketing communications Karen Gray, as well as Oystercatchers boss Suki Thompson (pictured) bigging up the medium.
Havas Helia has now been briefed to move the strategy forward, although it is not known whether the Mailmen theme will continue or be replaced by a new proposition.