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The Central Office of Information, currently reviewing its pounds

86m media buying business, is to hold a separate pitch for new media

strategy.

Peter Buchanan, COI director of marketing communications, told Marketing

that he would be posting an invitation to agencies in the Official

Journal of European Communities (OJEC) in May to pitch for a place on

the COI’s new media roster.

An invitation to tender for the COI’s pounds 86m TV, radio, cinema and

press buying account will appear in this month’s OJEC.

No separate budget has been allocated for new media and the COI declined

to reveal current spend. But, according to COI head of new media

development Jamie Galloway, new media could eventually match the pounds

4.6m the COI spends on cinema.

Successful agencies will work alongside the COI’s roster of creative

agencies and the media buying incumbent on a campaign-by-campaign

basis.

Sectors will include recruitment for the armed forces.

The Army already uses the internet in its recruitment campaigns and has

found that responses via the web site account for 30% of responses.

The new media agencies will have specific responsibility for handling

strategic planning as well as buying across emerging technologies

including digital TV, the internet, WAP-enabled and third-generation

mobile phones.

The pitch will be overseen by Buchanan, alongside Corinne Purton, deputy

director of marketing communications, and Galloway.

Buchanan said that new media specialists and traditional media agencies,

including those pitching for the COI’s pounds 86m media buying account,

are eligible to apply.

’It will give us the flexibility to work with developing technologies

and to constantly evolve and change what we do,’ said Buchanan.