Royal Mail review will create new PR roster

The Royal Mail is drawing up a new PR roster which will work across

the Post Office’s four strategic business units.

As a publicly-owned body, the Post Office - effectively a holding

company for the Royal Mail, Parcel Force, Post Office Counters and the

Post Office Group - is required to tender contracts anew when they

expire. It is not known how many agencies will be chosen, but the new

contracts could be up to five years long, and will come out of the Post

Office’s overall pounds 2.5 million PR agency budget.

The agency review has come at the end of two long contracts the Royal

Mail has had with QBO and The Reputation Managers (TRM). Both agencies

have also worked for other Post Office business units.

For the last four years, QBO’s deputy MD Shirley Hanley has headed a

variety of project teams working on different aspects of consumer PR for

the Post Office’s stamps, collectibles and international services. QBO

has tendered for the new work and is one of 15 agencies awaiting a

decision on the new roster, expected to be announced by late-March.

TRM, under MD Stella Hitner and account director Mireille Toddington,

has worked for branches of the Post Office for more than ten years,

though the agency has not tendered to be on the latest roster.

The state-owned body, in the process of obtaining plc status,

reorganised its PR function last month to make it more commercially

competitive (PR Week, 28 January). The four units no longer have a

dedicated PR function each, so any agency taken on is likely to work

across them as projects demand.