UNLIMITED and Pablo Land Metropolitan Police Service Contract

Following a competitive pitch, the Metropolitan Police Service has appointed UNLIMITED & Pablo to be its agency partner. The pitch process was open to rostered agencies on the Government and public bodies framework.

The UNLIMITED & Pablo consortium saw off tough competition from the Framework roster agencies to land this significant contract.

The agency consortium will support the police service in their pledge to deliver ‘More Trust, Less Crime and High Standards’, including their A New Met for London plan, which aims to transform the service through crime fighting, improving culture and standards, and fixing structural issues.

UNLIMITED & Pablo will be responsible for developing campaigns to connect with a wide range of audiences. An important component of improving levels of trust in the Met is developing high-quality communication that connects with an array of important stakeholders.

The contract's value is up to £4m and will run for two years (with an option to extend for a further two). It will cover the always-on recruitment campaigns for new officers, with a focus on attracting applications from a diverse group of people, in line with achieving the ambitions outlined in A New Met for London.

Additionally, there will be a range of behaviour change campaigns that seek to affect crime reduction in specific areas. The Met Police has previously won a raft of prestigious awards for work that has focused on knife crime reduction and tackling robbery. UNLIMITED & Pablo’s first campaign is expected to be a recruitment drive for the MPS.

Through UNLIMITED & Pablo, the Metropolitan Police Service will tap into two of the UK’s top independents, blending best-in-class creative and strategic capability with the ability to operate in-depth, at scale and at pace. Creative work across the UNLIMITED & Pablo consortium will be underpinned by UNLIMITED’s Human Understanding Lab, which will play a pivotal role in using behavioural and data science to enable the Met to better understand and communicate with relevant audiences.

This is the latest of many appointments for UNLIMITED & Pablo. They were appointed by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology last month, adding to a growing portfolio of government clients which includes the Cabinet Office and HMRC.

The extensive scope of the contract will run across Pablo and throughout UNLIMITED, including TMW Unlimited.

Stephanie Day, head of campaigns and marketing at the Metropolitan Police Service, “Our work can be challenging, but it is incredibly rewarding. We were looking for a partner with creative excellence to join us at this crucial stage. We were impressed by UNLIMITED & Pablo’s ability to listen, push creative boundaries, and uncover insight. We believe the team share our passion of bringing about change and making London a safer place for everyone."

Harriet Knight, joint managing director, Pablo London said, “Working with the Met offers such a unique opportunity to create campaigns that truly affect the lives of Londoners and play an integral part in keeping the public safe. We loved the client’s ambition and shared the same passion to create work that makes a real difference. As soon as the brief landed, we knew it was right up our street. Words such as “innovative”, “best in class” and “standout creativity” are exactly what any creative agency wants to hear, particularly from an organisation that has such a strong heritage in delivering work that drives change.”

Tim Bonnet, president at UNLIMITED added, “It's a privilege to join the Metropolitan Police as they build A New Met for London. This appointment gives us the opportunity to work on an incredible variety of unique behaviour change campaigns, all of which have the potential to make a huge difference to people's lives. We can't wait to use our skills of human understanding to get under the skin of these challenges, and help us achieve our shared ambition of creating iconic work that brings about positive change."