Tender

Food campaign media tender

London Waste and Recycling Board operating as ReLondon

UK4: Tender notice - Procurement Act 2023 - view information about notice types

Notice identifier: 2025/S 000-083505

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-05f70e

Published 16 December 2025, 4:00pm

Scope

Reference

2025/26-03

Description

1. Overview

This is an invitation to submit a proposal to ReLondon and its partners to provide media planning, buying and management support for a new London food waste prevention and recycling campaign. The campaign, which will launch in June 2026, supports changes to recycling policy and will run for one year. It is being managed by ReLondon on behalf of the London boroughs. Extensive strategic and insight work has already been done which can be used to support media planning. The work will be awarded as a fixed term, fixed cost project subject to ReLondon's standard terms and conditions.

2. Background

ReLondon ran a London campaign, Eat like a Londoner which ended in April 2025, having achieved year-on-year improvements in engagement and claimed behaviour change. A refreshed campaign will centre on food waste recycling, aligning with the Simpler Recycling legislation and practical shifts in how boroughs manage waste. The Simpler Recycling requirements include weekly household food waste collections by March 2026. Eat like a Londoner's channels (website and Instagram) have been maintained by ReLondon.

The target audience is 21-44 year old Londoners and parents with children under 11, as many establish a new food recycling routine. The campaign will empower Londoners to see the value in food, connect action with impact and feel part of a collective movement.

The campaign aims to boost people's motivation by:

• Creating a compelling reason why people should reduce household food waste and recycle it properly.

• Enabling a consistent messaging approach across the boroughs signed up to the campaign.

• Providing boroughs with a campaign toolkit to continue to engage residents in new food recycling routines.

The campaign will be distinct to London's huge population that fall within the target demographic - tapping into cultural pride, practical everyday challenges and diverse food cultures.

3. The brief

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:

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 and media partnerships for this campaign. How would you approach audio and media partnerships as part of an overall campaign strategy?

3.1 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 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;

• Localised - targeted activity tailored to residents of one or more London boroughs.

3.2 Channels/media

The campaign will launch in June 2026 and media bursts 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, 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.

3.3 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

4. 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"

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

• 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')

5. 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 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.

Total value (estimated)

£100,000 including VAT

Above the relevant threshold

Contract dates (estimated)

24 February 2026 to 30 June 2027
1 year, 4 months, 5 days

Main procurement category

Services

CPV classifications

79340000 - Advertising and marketing services

Contract locations

UK - United Kingdom

Participation

Particular suitability

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)
Voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSE)

Submission

Enquiry deadline

9 January 2026, 4:00pm

Submission type

Tenders

Tender submission deadline

23 January 2026, 5:00pm

Submission address and any special instructions

https://relondon.gov.uk/

For any questions relating to the brief please email drew.hughes@relondon.gov.uk and katie.moriyama@relondon.gov.uk by 4pm on 9th January 2026.

Please submit your responses to tenders@relondon.gov.uk by 5pm on 23rd January 2026.

For both questions and bids, please use the reference "ReLondon tender 2025/26- 03".

Tenders may be submitted electronically

Yes

Languages that may be used for submission

English

Award decision date (estimated)

24 February 2026

Award criteria

This table contains award criteria for this lot
Name	Description	Type	Weighting
Contextualising our audience: We expect proposals to demonstrate a deep understanding of our audience's behaviours, needs and environments, ensuring the idea feels relevant, timely and tailored	Stage 2	Quality	40%
Adaptability: We are looking for ideas that are flexible and can evolve across channels, formats and real-world scenarios without losing their core impact.	Stage 2	Quality	35%
Co-creation: We want concepts that invite genuine collaboration - both with our team during development and with our audiences as active participants.	Stage 2	Quality	25%

Other information

Conflicts assessment prepared/revised

Yes

Procedure

Procedure type

Competitive flexible procedure

Competitive flexible procedure description

The contracting authority will run a Competitive Flexible Procedure to award this contract. The procedure will include two-stage process: an initial selection stage followed by an evaluation of tenders against published criteria. Only the shortlisted suppliers will be invited to participate in the second stage of the procurement (presentations). The authority may refine stages of the procedure as permitted under the Procurement Act 2023 to ensure an efficient and proportionate competition. The award criteria are described in the ITT brief.

The evaluation criteria for each stage are described below:

Stage 1 evaluation criteria Weighting

Price . 20%

Demonstrated understanding of campaign objectives and ability to deliver the brief. 20%

Creativity and relevance of ideas suggested in response. 30%

Experience of agency, as well as allocated personnel, their skills and technical capability (including case studies). 20%

EDI: ReLondon is committed to promoting and encouraging greater Diversity & Inclusion among its workforce, community engagement activities, as well as throughout its supply chain. Please describe your organisation's approach to equity, diversity and inclusion and how you will apply it in the delivery of this contract. 5%

Carbon reduction: Reducing environmental impact is fundamental to ReLondon. We work with local authorities, businesses, and citizens to reduce waste and improve our use of resources to deliver environmental benefits. Please describe your organisational approach and ambition in relation to sustainability.

Stage 2 evaluation criteria Weighting

Adaptability: We are looking for ideas that are flexible and can evolve across channels, formats and real-world scenarios without losing their core impact. 35%

Co-creation: We want concepts that invite genuine collaboration - both with our team during development and with our audiences as active participants. 25%

Contextualising our audience: We expect proposals to demonstrate a deep understanding of our audience's behaviours, needs and environments, ensuring the idea feels relevant, timely and tailored. 40%

Documents

Associated tender documents