Creative Agency · Northern Trains Ltd (Nov 2021)

This tender procedure is for strategic and ongoing brand and advertising development, covering all media and customer touchpoints.The winning agency will be expected to undertake strategic design and advertising development of the current "Go Do Your Thing" positioning and brand platform in-line with business needs.Northern’s new ‘recovery’ campaign is now underway, encouraging Leisure and Commuter customers back to rail after the pandemic. In a typical year, Northern operates a mix of brand-led, seasonal, and tactical campaigns, utilising the sophisticated pricing, targeting and customer persona data at its disposal. Work will often involve collaboration with Northern’s other agencies.Northern is the largest rail company in the North of England, carrying 1 million passengers daily to over 540 destinations. With a fleet of new and refurbished trains, a pipeline of innovations across the entire customer journey and recent gains in brand measures, Northern has fertile ground for growth and a compelling story to tell.We strive to be outstanding in everything we do. We want to work with people who are committed to delivering the highest possible level of performance in everything that they do. We want to work with a partner who is open to ideas, to collaboration, to challenges and to new ways of thinking. We are seeking to appoint a partner who will:

• Work with the Marketing and wider Customer & Commercial Team to plan, design and deliver creative marketing campaigns across the breadth of the organisation;
• Work with us to help us to be relevant and appealing to our varied target audience base and ensuring that it reflects the best possible demographic messaging.
• Work with us to help us to secure the emotional engagement of customers to increase customer satisfaction levels and customer loyalty through the Northern Brand experience.
• Provide creative concept development proposals, in response to verbal or written briefs from Northern covering rough layouts and designs, promotional concepts, and some core artwork templates
• Input, advise and recommend on the efficient planning and evaluation of marketing media campaigns, working in association with the specialist media buying agencies as required by the Northern.
• Provide consultancy services in relation to the effective marketing of Northern’s business or businesses, liaising with other special service providers if required, as nominated by Northern.
• Preparation of budgets and cost estimates for key elements of each promotional campaign as requested by Northern.
• Involvement in preparation, execution and analysis of market research and other investigative analyses.

This tender procedure is for the provision of ‘Graphic Design’ services to Northern Trains. The services will include creating artwork for paid and owned channels to enable Northern to communicate with a range of audiences.Services may include the design of posters, newsletters, leaflets, infographics, advertisements (print and online) and internal collateral, as well as any other visual media that may be agreed between Northern & NTL. Given the complex nature of Northern’s network and targeting precision, it will also involve multiple geo-variations of core templates. Work will often involve collaboration with Northern’s other agencies.Northern Trains places particular importance on the graphical and artistic presentation of collateral at speed. For this reason, tenderers must prove their creativity and capacity of high-quality execution within a fast-paced trading environment.We strive to be outstanding in everything we do. We want to work with people who are committed to delivering the highest possible level of performance in everything that they do. We want to work with a partner who is open to ideas, to collaboration, to challenges and to new ways of thinking. We are seeking to appoint a partner who will:

• Work with the Marketing, its Lead Creative Agency and wider Customer & Commercial Team to plan, design and deliver creative marketing campaigns across the breadth of the organisation;
• Work with us to be relevant and appealing to our varied target audience base and ensuring advertising and marketing reflects the best possible demographic messaging.
• Work with us to secure the emotional engagement of customers to increase customer satisfaction levels and customer loyalty through the Northern Brand experience.
• Provide creative concept development proposals, in response to verbal or written briefs from Northern covering rough layouts and designs, promotional concepts and draft copies, or working with initial designs provided by the Lead Agency
• Upon approval of concepts by Northern, the progression of these proposals to artwork, mechanicals, computer files or similar materials in advance of production or printing. Thereafter, the production of commercials for broadcast media, advertisements, and printed materials for other campaign requirements.
• The production or print of specific executions, campaigns, items, or similar materials to a commercially acceptable standard.
• Preparation of budgets and cost estimates for key elements of each promotional campaign as requested by Northern,
• Provide assistance with other projects involved with the development of Northern’s business or businesses that are not necessarily directly related to the provision of advertising services. Additional project fees may be negotiated between Northern and the Agency in these instances, but shall always be approved by Northern in advance of such fees being incurred.