By Greg Hazley
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to solicit agency pitches this fall to tap a new pool of PR and advertising agencies which it will use to assign tasks for up to the next seven years.
The process, known in government procurement parlance as IDIQ, or indefinite delivery indefinite quantity, will award open-ended pacts – starting at one year, with six year-long options -- to four to six agencies.
Ketchum, Ogilvy PR Worldwide, Weber Shandwick and Porter Novelli were given five-year IDIQ pacts in a review in 2006. GCI, now folded into Cohn & Wolfe, and Academy for Educational Development, have previously had IDIQ status with the federal Medicare agency.
CMS, as the Medicare entity is known, said the assignments to be handed out will be primarily focused on providing a full-range of activities associated with national campaigns and initiatives that must be coordinated with both internal and external stakeholders at a national, regional, state, and local level. That includes major PR and advertising campaigns, social media, press kits, research, and other outreach.
CMS said a formal and fully open solicitation will be issued in late October or early November.
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