Food Campaign Media · UK public procurement notice

We require a media agency to work with our creative agency to:

• Collaborate during the campaign strategy and planning phase;
• Create a media plan for the campaign, recommending appropriate channels and formats, timings of media bursts and cost-effective approaches;
• Buy media space on our behalf, managing budgets efficiently;
• Report on campaign performance, tweaking channel approaches where necessary; and
• Work with the creative agency to ensure the right creatives are being used in the right spaces and identify where improvements could be made, both to the creative and messaging approaches and to the overall strategy.

We are asking agencies to respond to a series of questions, which we will be using as the basis for evaluating responses.

The questions are:

1. The aim of our campaign is to change food behaviours at home, which requires a very different approach to campaigns which target buying behaviours.

a. Do you have experience of buying for behaviour change campaigns?

b. Which channels and approaches would you use for this campaign to reach as much of our target audience as possible and ensure our messages stick?

2. We have a small budget but big ambitions. How would you ensure we are valued as a customer despite our size, and how would you achieve value for money?
3. As well as creating our own content and via influencers, we may signpost the content of others on our social channels and feature them on the campaign website. Would you recommend a different media strategy/tactics for this approach. If so, what would it be and why and what is your experience of doing this?
4. As well as OOH, digital and social, there may be the potential to explore audio (e.g. radio/podcasts) and media partnerships for this campaign. How would you approach audio and media partnerships as part of an overall campaign strategy?

Campaign requirements

The campaign is to be delivered over a one-year period. The planning phase will start immediately on appointment with a full briefing on progress to date. Our goal is a June 2026 campaign launch.

While the campaign may create a wide range of assets on both main topics (food waste prevention and food waste recycling) over the three years, some boroughs and waste disposal authorities may choose to focus more on one set of messaging, so the campaign must work and be adaptable on several levels, including potentially:

• Regional - awareness-raising activity across the capital, including outer as well as inner London boroughs;
• Sub-regional - awareness-raising and engagement activity across clusters of boroughs (waste authorities);
• Localised - targeted activity tailored to residents of one or more London boroughs.

Channels/media

The campaign will launch in June 2026 and media bursts (approximately two to three per year) will continue for the duration of the campaign. Our initial thinking on channel mix is below, however we would like to hear your recommendations:

• Out-of-home advertising - depending on budgets and media availability, including TFL network (buses, tube, etc), plus owned or price-capped media channels via boroughs (e.g. JCDecaux sites, libraries, community spaces, leisure centres, etc)
• Digital advertising - via social media channels (Instagram and Facebook) and influencers. Additional digital channels (e.g. programmatic) could be explored if relevant and recommended
• Audio - such as local radio and podcasts if recommended
• Media/brand partnerships - with likeminded individuals, influencers and organisations

Sites of particular interest include high density and high dwell time areas within the London boroughs which are providing funding and support of this campaign (see below), on key transport networks and busy commuter routes, as our research has indicated this is where marketing communications can have the greatest impact. Depending on the media location the campaign messaging may flex to either cater to the food waste prevention or food waste recycling message.

The 17 boroughs participating in the campaign are:

• Barnet
• Bexley
• Camden
• Ealing
• Enfield
• Hackney
• Hammersmith & Fulham
• Haringey
• Hillingdon
• Islington
• Kensington & Chelsea
• Lewisham
• Merton
• Richmond
• Waltham Forest
• Wandsworth
• Westminster

We are also keen to explore brand partnerships with likeminded individuals, influencers and organisations to help land and scale the messaging. Recommendations for this should be included in the proposal.

Owned channels include a website and organic social media channels which are updated several times a week. The website would be updated to include a section dedicated to food waste recycling.

Campaign KPIs and evaluation

While the ultimate goal of the campaign is to change people's behaviours at home to increase food waste recycling participation and waste less food, it is primarily an awareness-raising campaign to help Londoners draw the link between food and climate, and understand how their food behaviours can both reduce their climate impact and save them money at home.

Evaluation will take place at the end of each financial year and will therefore focus on whether people have seen, engaged with and taken an action against the messaging. KPIs will likely include:

• Engagement - how many people have engaged with our ads
• Awareness - how many people recall seeing our ads
• Consideration - Has this impacted claimed behaviour

Objectives

The objective of the campaign is to:

• Get: Younger Londoners, aged 21-44 and those with children under 11 years old at home (the highest food wasters)
• To: Reduce household food waste and recycle what they can't eat
• By: Connecting with them emotionally and using normative messaging to engage, motivate and empower them to reduce their "food footprint" (the carbon impact of their household food consumption)

This objective will be achieved by fulfilling the following sub-objectives:

• Build on Londoner's belief that wasting food is morally wrong and increase awareness of the relationship between food and climate (for citizens already engaged in the topic of sustainability)
• Increase motivation to reduce household food waste and recycle food that can't be eaten using behavioural nudges
• Build understanding of how to reduce both household costs and impact on the climate through changed food behaviours at home
• Drive traffic from the London-wide campaign (on the 'why') through to borough-level service comms (on the 'how')

Deliverables

Please provide a written proposal responding to the brief to show how you would achieve the objectives outlined above. Please do not be constrained by our methodology - if you feel there are better ways of achieving our objectives, we would like to see those ideas.

Your response should be no longer than 4 pages (excluding CVs and sample creatives) and include:

• Your answers to the questions in section 3 above.
• Example creatives and media strategies from behaviour change, or other relevant, campaigns you have delivered.
• Profiles of the team allocated to the work, including short CVs which outline relevant experience.
• A breakdown of your fees including VAT to deliver the whole project including:

o Planning and strategy

o Ad creation, management and optimisation

o Reporting

o Other time costs, including meetings, project management, analysis

o Expenses

The following specific deliverables should be included in your quote:

a. Attendance at an in-person inception meeting, including a briefing workshop to discuss and agree the detailed requirements of the project;

b. Regular virtual and/or in-person update meetings with the ReLondon campaign lead and working group;

c. All planning and delivery of activity outlined above;

d. A timeline with key dates leading to the launch date(s) agreed in liaison with the campaign lead, media agency and working group;

e. Presentations to the project board, including Q&A, of (a) draft media plans and (b) final media plans (slide decks to be provided to the project team afterwards);

f. Attendance at project board meetings at other key moments as identified and agreed with the campaign lead.