University of Southampton Advertising Services Tender
The University of Southampton requires an advertising agency to provide advertising services with a new, open and transparent approach for media buying.
United Kingdom-Southampton: Advertising services
2019/S 063-146869
Contract notice
Services
Directive 2014/24/EU
Section I: Contracting authority
I.1)Name and addresses
University Road
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
Contact person: Alice Mashford
Telephone: +44 2380595000
E-mail: Procurement@soton.ac.uk
NUTS code: UKJ32
Address of the buyer profile: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/universityofsouthampton
I.3)Communication
I.4)Type of the contracting authority
I.5)Main activity
Section II: Object
II.1.1)Title:
Advertising Services
II.1.2)Main CPV code
II.1.3)Type of contract
II.1.4)Short description:
The University of Southampton requires an advertising agency to provide advertising services with a new, open and transparent approach for media buying, with the agency providing the best possible outcomes for communication campaigns whilst providing value for money.
The agency shall be capable of delivering value for money, as well as providing excellent customer service including strategic implementational buying advice, and be willing and capable of working in partnership with other agencies and specialists to deliver the media buying aspect of fully integrated campaigns for the University of Southampton to ensure the process from strategy to implementation is successful.
II.1.5)Estimated total value
II.1.6)Information about lots
II.2.2)Additional CPV code(s)
II.2.3)Place of performance
II.2.4)Description of the procurement:
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.
The University will work in partnership with the appointed agency and will be able to provide appropriate campaign insight such as the profiles of our target audiences, geographic data, learnings from previous campaigns, etc. Brand and reputation is managed corporately and all other campaigns will sit beneath this. Activity relating so student recruitment will have 2 layers – corporate campaigns which advance University-wide objectives, and subject specific campaigns which focus on particular areas of study. Subject specific campaigns will typically have a lower budget than corporate campaigns but the University views these as of equal value to the corporate campaigns and expects the agency to work in a way that reflects this. The University may occasionally require the agency to support activity such as the promotion of its arts offering or recruiting participants for research studies. There may also be a requirement for activity to support commercial enterprise units. All staff recruitment and media and public relations are out of scope of this tender.
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 5 qualified potential suppliers for formal invitation to tender. The maximum number of qualified potential suppliers will be based on the top 5 scores achieved. Where more than the maximum number of potential suppliers have achieved a top 5 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).
II.2.5)Award criteria
II.2.6)Estimated value
II.2.7)Duration of the contract, framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system
This contract is likely to be subject to renewal towards the end of this contract period.
II.2.9)Information about the limits on the number of candidates to be invited
The Selection Stage evaluation criteria will be as follows. Full details are provided in the Selection Stage document set:
Mandatory requirements:
— economic and financial standing,
— insurance,
— data protection,
— modern slavery.
Weighted requirements:
Quality criterion — a minimum threshold of 50 % applies:
— media mistakes — procedures of dealing with errors made by media owners — 10 %,
— digital advertising capability — 15 %,
— print and out of home advertising capability — 15 %,
— international advertising capability — 15 %,
— TV advertising capability — 15 %,
— brand safety — 10 %,
— example of a stand-out advertising campaign — 20 %.
II.2.10)Information about variants
II.2.11)Information about options
II.2.13)Information about European Union funds
II.2.14)Additional information
Lots: this contract is not suitable for splitting into lots. The risk of dividing the requirement into lots would render the execution of the contract excessively technically difficult, not cost effective and would undermine proper execution of the contract.
Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information
III.1.2)Economic and financial standing
To support the financial assessment, the University will obtain a Business Risk Report for all Potential Suppliers and every organisation that is being relied on to meet this procurement, using an independent company called Creditsafe.
The University reserves the right to exclude a potential supplier or request provision of further assurances such as parent company/bank guarantee or performance bonds where a Potential Supplier’s Business Risk Score is: “Moderate Risk”; “High Risk”; “Very High Risk”; or “Not Rated”, based on the rating provided by Creditsafe.
Where a Business Risk Score from our external system is not available, then an alternative method of assessing financial standing will be used. This method is detailed within the Invitation to Tender document set.
Potential suppliers are advised that a requirement of this procurement is to have in place, or commit to obtain prior to the commencement of the contract, the following minimum insurance levels:
Employers (Compulsory) Liability: 10 000 000 GBP per occurrence.
Public Liability: 10 000 000 GBP per occurrence.
Professional Indemnity Insurance: 5 000 000 GBP per occurrence.
III.1.3)Technical and professional ability
The selection criteria is as stated in the Selection Stage document set.
However, potential suppliers’ attention is drawn to the mandatory requirements of the selection criteria:
— grounds for mandatory exclusion,
— grounds for discretionary exclusion,
— economic and financial standing,
— technical and professional ability,
— data protection legislation,
— modern slavery legislation,
— insurance.
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1.1)Type of procedure
IV.1.8)Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
IV.2.2)Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate
IV.2.3)Estimated date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates
IV.2.4)Languages in which tenders or requests to participate may be submitted:
IV.2.6)Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1)Information about recurrence
2023.
VI.2)Information about electronic workflows
VI.3)Additional information:
E-Tendering Portal: The University is utilising an electronic tendering tool, In-Tend (https://intendhost.co.uk/ universityofsouthampton) to manage this procurement and to communicate with potential suppliers and/or tenderers (as appropriate).
All documentation in relation to this tender can be downloaded from In-Tend.
Potential suppliers/tenderers are advised that there will be no hard copy documents issued and all communications with the University, including the submission of Selection Stage and/or Invitation to Tender responses will be conducted via In-Tend.
Regular monitoring of the portal is the responsibility of the potential supplier/tenderer.
If you are not already registered as a supplier with the University of Southampton, you will need to register in In-Tend in order to access the procurement documentation.
Once you have logged in as a supplier: click on “Tenders”; locate the relevant project; and click “View Details”. Once you are in the project screen, you will be able to register your organisation against the project and access all documentation by clicking “Express Interest”.
Potential suppliers/tenderers are advised that formal expressions of interest in the project must be by way of completion and return of the relevant documents via In-Tend.
Further instructions for the submission of responses are below:
To submit your return:
1) Log in;
2) Click “Tenders”;
3) Locate the relevant project;
4) View details;
5) Click on the tab relating to the relevant project stage (e.g. “Invitation to Tender”);
6) Click on the “Attach Documents” button and upload your return;
7) Check all your response documents are uploaded and displayed in the “My Tender Return” panel. The system will only permit your organisation to make 1 return;
8) Click the red “Submit Return” button.
Please note, to preserve the integrity of the procurement, all communications with the University must be made via the correspondence function within In-Tend.
Publication of Award Details: in accordance with Regulation 50, paragraph (2) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and subject to Article 5 and Annex 5, Part D (13) of Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (if applicable), the University intends to publish the value of any resulting contract at the award stage, and reserves the right to do so. By submitting a response, potential suppliers/tenderers are consenting to publication of this information unless otherwise agreed in advance with the University.
Costs and expenses: potential suppliers/tenderers are solely responsible for their costs and expenses incurred in connection with the preparation and submission of responses and participation in this and all future stages of this procurement. Under no circumstances will the University be liable for any costs or expenses borne by potential suppliers/tenderers or any of their supply chain, partners or advisers in this procurement process.
The University is not liable for any costs in the event of the cancellation of this procurement process.
VI.4.1)Review body
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
VI.5)Date of dispatch of this notice:
