Royal Mail is reportedly set to appoint TMW to handle its creative account following a competitive pitch, beating off Iris and Dentsu Creative in the final shootout.
The statutory review, which is being managed by AAR, kicked off last month and saw incumbent agency AMV BBDO step down from the account after its current tenure.
AMV was first appointed to the account in June 2003, taking over from Bates, and retained the brief after a review in 2008. It continued to work on the account until 2011, when it first declined to repitch and the account was awarded to Beta.
It was then reappointed in 2022 and has been responsible for campaigns including “Send It Your Way” and its recent work highlighting posties.
It does not affect Royal Mail’s other agency relationships: the7stars will continue to handle media planning and buying, and SocialChain remains responsible for the company’s social growth strategy and influencer activation. Royal Mail Marketreach, the business arm, is handled by MSQ-owned The Gate.
No-one at Royal Mail or TMW, which is now part of Accenture Song, was available for comment on the appointment.
Even so, the agency will have to hit the ground running, with Royal Mail facing significant challenges, including intense competition in the parcel market, the financial burden of the Universal Service Obligation (USO), and ongoing operational and regulatory pressures.
The biggest threat to the postal operator, however, is the drastic decline in the volume of letters, from a peak of 20 billion in 2004/05 to around 6.7 billion in 2023/24, a decline of two-thirds in two decades. This drop increases the average cost of delivering each letter, challenging profitability in this segment. And, while direct mail is holding its own, it is now being used far more tactically than back in the “mail them to death” era of Capital One and MBNA.
In an effort to reverse this declime, Royal Mail is currently running a major national advertising campaign to encourage people to send Christmas cards (pictured), emphasising the emotional impact and tradition of receiving a physical, handwritten message.
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