San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is looking for a firm to handle advertising, PR and research for its Spare the Air campaign.

The RFP calls for a three-year contract budgeted up to $5.9M.

Formed by the California legislature in 1955 to deal with pollution, the District serves the 7M people in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, southwest Solano and southern Sonoma counties.

The District credits its various Spare the Air campaigns for dramatically cutting pollution by communicating the health implications of ozone and fine particulate matter in the air and encouraging people to carpool/ride public transit/work remotely and to reduce or eliminate indoor/outdoor wood burning.

Since California's air quality improved dramatically due to COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, the District is trying to encourage employers to give staffers the option to work from home at least once or twice a week, once the pandemic has passed.

The District wants a firm to develop, produce and implement various Spare the Air campaigns, create PR efforts to promote overall messaging goals, arrange media events, arrange interviews/speaking engagements for District officials and pen/place op-eds.

There is a social media component based on the Spare the Air Every Day Campaign, Spare the Air Winter Campaign, Spare the Air Employer Program and Commuter Benefits Program.

Responses to the RFP are due Dec. 28. Send an electronic copy (Adobe PDF) to Cynthia Zhang, senior staff specialist, at the District’s portal https://baaqmd.bonfirehub.com.

Download RFP (PDF).