AEA230151 Marketing: Strategic and Creative Services

This procurement is to award to a sole creative media agency. This will be a contract to the end of Greater Anglia's extended NRC term (20/09/2026) with the option to extend a further 2.5 years

Greater Anglia (GA) provides intercity, commuter and rural train services throughout Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, including the Stansted Express service. Rail travel in the East of England has been transformed by a £1.4b investment in new trains which has seen GA replace every single train on the network. This has helped GA to become the most punctual and reliable train operator in the whole of the UK and significantly improved customer satisfaction.

The Stansted Express is a direct train service that connects London Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport and is operated by Greater Anglia. Currently marketed as 'the fastest way to central London' the journey time from London Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport is 50 minutes and is also operated by a fleet of the recently introduced trains. From December 2023 the Stansted Express will return to a 15-minute frequency, bringing back a core USP that was lost since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

GA is looking for a creative agency that can continuously improve the marketing effectiveness of both the Greater Anglia and Stansted Express brands. Working closely with GA's marketing team the creative agency will cooperate with other marketing services resources to develop and execute advertising campaigns for GA and Stansted Express brands.

For GA, the primary objective is driving revenue, through the acquisition of new customers and new journeys across the leisure, business, and commuting segments with the private car being the main competitor. GA launched the Red Hare as a distinctive brand asset in early 2019 to coincide with the transformation of new trains, and the marketing campaign has performed well with strong brand health metrics and excellent ROI results being seen.

GA invests in marketing effectiveness research, ranging from six monthly brand tracking and econometric modelling to creative advertising and brand asset testing. The more recent System1 creative and brand testing in 2022 and 2023 indicates the Red Hare is becoming a very ownable brand asset, should be retained and could be developed to the next stage.

For Stansted Express, the objective is to increase rail modal share to and from Stansted Airport competing with the Coach, Private Car and Taxis. Stansted Express is marketed as a separate brand to GA, and in June 2023 launched a new marketing campaign that was designed to coincide with improvements to the Stansted Express timetable and the recovery of the airport passenger numbers at Stansted Airport. A new brand character, Stan, was introduced to ensure airport travellers felt certain that Stansted Express is the obvious choice. The campaign combines the emotional benefits of reassurance and peace of mind and the rational benefit of speed.

The brand character of Stan is likely to be retained until at least summer 2025, coinciding with expiry of the existing illustration rights, although GA will continually monitor the marketing effectiveness of the campaign and the market with this in mind.

The GA marketing mix operates across a range of paid, owned and earned media channels. Paid channels are primarily seen in the East of England, with some activity trialled in the London market. Examples of paid media for GA are audio visual (AV), radio, sponsorships, outdoor and digital. A mix of campaign and 'always on' activity occurs. Owned media is used to compliment the paid media and also target existing customers with customer information and marketing messages.

For Stansted Express, the marketing mix typically comprises of the proven channels of airport posters, digital marketing and media targeting the London outbound audience. This is largely 'always on', and less campaign based. GA and Stansted Express marketing also needs to align to activity of the recently introduced national marketing campaigns (NMC). The NMC is largely brand led with a national focus, with train operating companies focusing on brand and activation within their local markets.