UK Government Reveals Strategy & Planning Roster

The UK Government has confirmed the fifteen agencies on its new Strategy & Planning roster, which will provide public sector organisations with a range of marcoms support including campaign strategy development, trend forecasting and target audience identification.

The roster is divided into two 'lots', the first being 'Marketing & Communications Strategy Development', which involves the analysis of market opportunities and drivers, identifying and prioritising market segments, and value analysis in order to provide insights into markets, customers and potential value.

Successful agencies include 8hwe, Aegis's behaviour change specialist Equal, Bray Leino, Diva Creative, Draftfcb, Enter Here, Manning Gottlieb, Mediaedge:CIA, MediaCom, Oxygen Brand Consulting, RKCR/Y&R, and Quadrant Consultants. Those on the list will be required to deliver a range of services including trend forecasting, target audience identification and analysis, behaviour change and modelling, insight generation, communications strategy and development, and stakeholder evaluation.

The second lot - 'Communications Channel Strategy & Planning' - centres on delivering measurable communications plans across relevant channels, and successful agencies are Carat, Manning Gottlieb, MediaCom, Mediaedge:CIA, Mindshare Media, and UM London.

The roster has been introduced following the closure of the Government's marketing services provider, the Central Office of Information (COI), last year.

Alex Aiken, the Executive Director for Government Communications claims the new streamlined roster, which replaces two legacy COI arrangements of 37 suppliers, will save taxpayers up to £1m a year. 'Our reforms to the way Whitehall works have seen us crack down on unnecessary marketing and advertising campaigns to make sure we're as effective and innovative as possible when communicating with the public,' he stated.

Web site: www.gov.uk .