The contract began at the beginning of June 2014 and will run for four years and cover the charity’s Red Nose Day and Sport Relief campaigns.

“We’re looking to embrace more digital printing and be quicker to market,” said HighCo MRM managing director Peter Kerr.

Work on the campaign for Red Nose Day 2015, which takes place on Friday 13 March, has already begun with a mailing to schools. The contract covers stock management and dispatch of up to 2m items in the run-up to the event, response management, data capture and a portion of the print sourcing.

“HighCo MRM’s enthusiastic approach to project planning, implementation and ongoing management has already demonstrated its expertise to us,” said Comic Relief head of campaign management Jacqueline Hill.

“I have no doubt that its ethos of developing strategic partnerships will result in long-term cost benefits to Comic Relief.”

Kerr said that the print requirements would include web offset, digital over-printing and full digital production. In addition to commercial print it will also include display graphics such as posters, banners and flags, and garments.

He declined to provide an indication of the size of the spend.

Supplier selection is underway according to Kerr.

“We’re benchmarking suppliers and will be using those we feel are appropriate,” he said. “I’ve been very impressed by the full digital print capability in the UK.”

The Market Harborough, Leicestershire-based firm is part of French communications group HighCo, which has operations in 15 countries across the EU and in Russia, Ukraine and the UAE, and is 30% owned by WPP.

HighCo MRM, which was previously called Multi Resource Marketing, was acquired by HighCo in 2011.