UK Royal Mail plans GBP10m 'proportional parcel pricing' drive

Royal Mail is launching its biggest marketing campaign to date to explain its new Pricing in Proportion system.

The #10m integrated campaign includes a door-drop to every UK address – both business and consumer – and television ads voiced by actor Kevin Whatley. The ads, created by Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO, will run for six weeks and break next week. Proximity London created the door-drop activity.

For the first time, Royal Mail is using interactive TV in its advertising, and to reach consumers in rural areas it has placed 100 inserts in regional newspapers. It will also run press ads in specialist titles such as Disability Now and Asian Times, and ads, also voiced by Whatley, will appear on regional and national radio stations.

To complete the campaign, more than 5,000 billboard ads will appear across the UK, and every Post Office counter will have a measurement template to demonstrate the new pricing system.

From August 21, the system for calculating the cost of posting letters and parcels will no longer be based purely on the weight of an item but also on its size and shape.

Royal Mail senior brand and advertising manager Kathryn McNamara says: “We are undertaking the campaign to ensure that all of our customers know about the changes to the way we will charge for mail delivery. Through this campaign, all our customers will have been made aware of the changes before they come into effect.”