Media buying opportunity

Media Buying Tender

Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) is a registered charity, responsible for the care, conservation, and presentation of HM Tower of London (TOL), Hampton Court Palace (HCP), Kensington Palace, (KP) the Banqueting House at Whitehall (BH), Kew Palace (KEW) and Hillsborough Castle and Gardens, (HCG) the official residence of HM The King in Northern Ireland and residence of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Historic Royal Palaces is an independent charity for everyone, receiving no regular government funding and derives its income principally from admissions, retail, licensing, commercial events, sponsorship and support from donors and members.

The palaces in our care are the setting for the stories that shape us all, and we’re bringing them to people in ways that mean more to them. We want everyone to find themselves in the spaces and stories we share.

We will be running a Competitive Flexible Procedure tender process with the intention of awarding contracts for the provision of Media Planning and Buying Services. This tender will be run in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.

This procurement will be run as a two-stage tender process:
Stage 1 - Expression of Interest and Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ)
Stage 2 - Invitation to Tender (ITT) (Shortlisted suppliers only)

Requirements

We are seeking expressions of interest from suitably experienced / qualified organisations.

The contract will be divided into two lots:

Lot 1: Offline Media
Lot 2: Digital Media

One supplier will be appointed to each lot. Organisations may apply for one or both lots, and Historic Royal Palaces reserves the right to appoint one supplier for both lots.

Contract value

Total expenditure is estimated at £2.4m per annum and based on a 3 + 2-year arrangement would represent £12m.

Exclusion criteria: Please refer to the PSQ document for information on exclusion criteria.

Tender process

Stage 1 - Expressions of interest and Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ):
The tender process will be run through Historic Royal Palace’s e-tendering system, Delta e-Sourcing. All expressions of interest and PSQ’s must be received by Historic Royal Palaces by 08 April 2025 at midday and must be submitted electronically via Delta e-Sourcing.

Stage 2 – Invitation to Tender (ITT):
Tender documents will be made available on Delta to those suppliers who are shortlisted at PSQ stage.

Historic Royal Palaces reserves the right to refine award criteria during the tender process.

Registrations

Suppliers will need to register on Delta E-Sourcing in order to participate in the tender process. Suppliers can register here: https://www.delta-esourcing.com/register/

Suppliers must be registered on the Central Digital Platform. Suppliers can register here: www.gov.uk/find-tender 

Shortlisting

Suppliers will be shortlisted based on responses to the PSQ. There will be a maximum of five suppliers per lot invited to stage two of the tender.

Anticipated contract start date: March 2026

Contract period: 3 years with the option of extending for an additional 2 years

Contract location: UK with sites in London and Northern Ireland

Additional information

As part of our pre-tender research, we conducted a session presenting outline details of the opportunity to potential tenderers that had previously expressed an interest in working with Historic Royal Palaces. Details of this session can be found in the attached documents, including a recording of the presentation and the slide deck.

Historic Royal Palaces reserves the right not to award a contract and are at liberty to amend / refine the process and the evaluation criteria (subject to advising everyone via another transparency notice).

For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Delta portal.

To respond to this opportunity, please visit this link: https://www.delta-esourcing.com/respond/252867J49A

If you experience any technical difficulties from accessing the above url, then please contact the Delta eSourcing Helpdesk. Call 0800 923 9236 or email helpdesk@delta-esourcing.com.