Advertising Services

Tender description

The University of Southampton commissions advertising to promote the University in the UK and overseas to a range of audiences including undergraduate and postgraduate students, business, partners and other stakeholders. The University will appoint an agency for media advice, planning, buying and reporting. The University is looking to build on its existing success and needs an agency that will work with it to realise its strategic goals and aspirations. The Higher Education market is increasingly global and competitive and the University needs to be proactive in meeting the challenges and opportunities that arise as a result. The contract will be managed by Communications and Marketing to ensure quality control, brand compliance and adherence to KPIs. The agency is required to ensure that the University gains access to the best opportunities relevant to its markets, deliver value for money and measure results in a proactive fashion that ensures all activity delivers against the University's KPIs. The University expects the agency to take a 'right first time' approach to ensure that opportunity is not lost in the highly competitive and time-sensitive student recruitment cycle. This procurement process is being conducted as a Restricted procedure; consisting of both Selection and Invitation to Tender stages. Stage 1 - Selection Stage: An overall pass mark of 50 % shall apply to this stage. The intention is to arrive at a shortlist of a maximum of five qualified potential suppliers for formal invitation to tender. The maximum number of qualified potential suppliers will be based on the top five scores achieved. Where more than the maximum number of potential suppliers have achieved a top five score (i.e. a tie), all of those potential suppliers will be invited to the Invitation to Tender stage. Stage 2 - Invitation to Tender (ITT) stage - A maximum of 5 qualified tenderers will be invited to submit formal tenders at this stage. The University proposes to enter into a Contract for 4 years with the successful tenderer. This will comprise of an initial contract period of 2 years with an option to extend by a further 1 year + 1 year subject to satisfactory performance and at the discretion of the University. The estimated value of the initial 2-year contract term is in the region of £1,750,000 GBP (excluding VAT). The estimated value of the 1-year extension period is £875,000 GBP (excluding VAT). It is estimated, therefore, that the total value of this contract will be £3,500,000 GBP (excluding VAT).