Higher Education Marketing Agency to Support the Implementation of Student Recruitment Campaigns

The University of Chester invited tenders for a specialist Higher Education marketing agency through the UK Open Procedure under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and The Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 to support primarily with media planning and buying for its student recruitment campaigns. This will be a two-year contract with the option to extend for a further 24-months on a year-by-year basis. Although the University was looking for an agency to help principally with media planning and buying, the expectation is that the successful agency will work collaboratively with the University on campaign strategy, providing relevant audience, market, and competitor insights to help the University gain a competitive advantage. Further to this, from time-to-time, the University may wish to tap into any creative services available within the agency to help with the production of creative assets and development of our messaging strategy. For the purposes of this contract, please note that the estimated contract value has been provided in the tender documents for the first 12-months of the contract with the assumption that there will be the equivalent spend in year two of the contract, and also year three and four should the options to extend be exercised. The total contract value in this notice is therefore estimated in relation to the full potential four years of any subsequent contract. Please note that the incumbent supplier is contracted until 31st January 2024 and is currently delivering our 2024 pre-application campaign. On the current agreement, this supplier may continue to deliver briefs which have been issued prior to commencement of the contract awarded following this tender. This may result in some crossover of delivery. Further details were available in the tender documents.