Meet Tom Hings, Royal Mail

Royal Mail operates in three very different markets: an end-to-end goods fulfilment solution to businesses, advertising services to advertisers and their agencies, and the universal service delivering to every address in the country for the price of a stamp, vital in connecting people across the UK. Our biggest challenge is restating the case for direct mail, invigorating the channel and educating the market on what DM can offer brand advertisers, and its role in a multi-channel world. DM has a proven capability in one-to-one, long-term customer relationships, but can be used to great effect as part of a multimedia brand campaign. A recent study by Tilt identified that DM drives online traffic by up to 40%. As with any advertiser in this multimedia age, our other challenge is using media to deliver against individual product requirements, targets and brand objectives. For the Royal Mail, that's to successfully position the brand as a B2B offering.

What are your criteria for choosing an agency?
An agency must be able to demonstrate, and deliver, innovative strategic thinking. When choosing OMD, it was important that their people had the right chemistry with us - it's a cliche but it's got to be a positive working relationship to truly be fruitful.

What's the main difference between working in an agency versus client-side?
Blimey, it's a long time since I worked agency-side (in the mid- to late-1980s for Cogent Elliott and Lintas:London). The major difference is in "owning performance", although agencies have come a long way in being more accountable for their actions than they used to be, and media agencies have the edge over creative ones.

Which medium can't you live without?
DM of course; it pays my salary. Also, as a significant proportion of our revenue is derived from business customers, direct mail happens to be excellent at targeting a business-to-business customer base.