Royal Mail suspends plan to add "Delivered by" label to mail

Royal Mail has confirmed it will not be implementing its plans to splash “Delivered by Royal Mail” logos on all machine-sort mail from this month. It won’t decide on its course of action until early November.

The company faced a major backlash from its customers in the UK, particularly those in the advertising community, which had feared the Royal Mail labels would detract from marketing materials and effectively provide free advertising for Royal Mail.

Royal Mail said it wanted the labels to raise awareness of the work of its employees among the general public.

It had originally scheduled the plan to take effect from mid-September, which would have affected around 60% of the mailstream. However, protests flooded in from mail customers including an official complaint to regulators Postcomm from the Direct Marketing Association.

Last week, the company’s director of sales and channels Graham Davis said he will take the next month to develop plans further.

In a message to customers, he said: “We take these concerns seriously so I am keen to spend time over the coming month with both Trade Associations and customers, listening to feedback and taking on board comments and input.”

Graham said Royal Mail still wanted to develop a plan that “meets our aim of giving our postmen and women the recognition they deserve for the fantastic job they do”.

Stating that Royal Mail would announce its next move by early November, he said: “To confirm, we will not now be deploying the application of this new mark from mid-September. In the meantime, we wold encourage you to continue with your existing mailing plans as usual whilst we defer and develop our plans.”

The UK’s Direct Marketing Association did not immediately respond to request for comment, but has previously warned that the Royal Mail’s plans could set a precedent for the postal operator to print whatever it liked on envelopes, and that consultation about the proposals had been lacking.