The Southern California Association of Governments Seeks Public Relations Firm

Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is seeking a marketing and advertising experience to develop and implement the advertising component of Go Human. The primary goal of the Campaign is to reduce vehicle versus pedestrian and bicycle collisions, while increasing levels of walking and biking in Southern California.

Background:

Founded in 1965, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is the nation’s largest Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and Council of Governments. The SCAG region encompasses six counties (Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura) and 191 cities in an area covering more than 38,000 square miles. The agency develops long-range regional transportation plans including a sustainable communities strategy and growth forecast components, regional transportation improvement programs, regional housing needs allocations, and a portion of the South Coast Air Quality management plans.

About Go Human

Go Human is an award winning community outreach and advertising campaign with the goals of reducing traffic collisions and encouraging people to walk and bike more in the SCAG region.

Appearing on freeway billboards, buses and bus shelters, the Go Human campaign is a collaboration between SCAG and the health departments and transportation commissions from six counties in the region – Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura. As of August 2016, the Campaign has achieved over 555 million impressions.

Scope of Work:

Task 1: Project Management

1.1 Consultant Kick-off Meeting

The Consultant will participate in a two hour kick-off meeting with SCAG and the Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) staff to discuss the project expectations including invoicing, quarterly reporting, and all other relevant project information.

1.2  Consultant Reporting/Invoicing

The Consultant will provide SCAG with ten (10) monthly progress reports documenting the scope of its activities. The Consultant will invoice SCAG upon completion of each deliverable. The Consultant will provide SCAG with weekly updates identifying and tracking deliverables.

1.3  Regular Project Management Meetings

The Consultant shall conduct ten (10) monthly project team meetings with SCAG Project Manager. For each of the ten (10) meetings, the Consultant will prepare an agenda, minutes, action item lists and presentation, and is responsible for emailing meeting materials to all project team members no later than forty eight (48) hours before the meeting.

Additional ad hoc meetings will also be necessary at certain points during the planning process. Ad hoc meetings will not require a formal agenda but notes shall be included in the monthly meeting notes to ensure tracking of discussions related to all deliverables. SCAG’s video conferencing facilities will be made available, upon request, in the regional offices to facilitate the team meetings. The Consultant will also provide an updated project timeline each month and a “look ahead” for project milestones in the coming months. The timeline will be in Gantt chart format that can be used to clearly track the progress of campaign development (Microsoft Project Manager is preferred but not required).

Task 2: Planning

2.1  Campaign Implementation Plan and Project Schedule

The Consultant shall develop an Implementation Plan for the campaign for delivery of both rounds of advertising.

• The Implementation Plan will outline a schedule that includes, key deliverables and dates for coordination, review, and collaboration on all elements of the campaign.
• The Implementation Plan will include an Advertising Strategy detailing the types of media to be purchased and run time for each county that can be reviewed by the project steering committee. The Advertising Strategy will provide a cost analysis and media buy recommendation for advertising opportunities. These strategies will be designed to meet the project goal of 250 million impressions (as determined by media analytics), achieved by mid-August 2018. The strategy shall consider a variety of media outlets including, but not limited to broadcast, print, billboards, transit, online advertising, social media, direct mail, or grassroots marketing (in English and Spanish). The Consultant shall propose strategies for targeting specific locations in with the media to address collision hot spots.

In addition, the Consultant will provide strategies for in-language advertising, targeting non- English speaking populations in communities/areas identified by SCAG staff (see chart below for approximate media split by county). The advertising strategy will be provided by the Consultant in spreadsheet format for the proposed purchases.

• The Implementation Plan will include a Donated Media Strategy for coordinating donated media space and printing collateral for local cities and other agency partners such as transit agencies. This Contract will include a printing budget to leverage donated space. The Consultant will coordinate with print vendors and local partners to ensure local agencies’ logos are placed according to design guidelines and printed materials are delivered to the appropriate agency.
• The Implementation plan will outline the languages to be included in the campaign (at a minimum English and Spanish but the Consultant shall also consider Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean for specific geographies. The Implementation Plan will outline a process for approving translations.

2.2 Vision Zero Integration

This round of Go Human advertising will closely integrate lessons learned from Vision Zero efforts being led across the region. The Consultant will review existing Vision Zero efforts and messaging and propose new campaign messaging for Go Human that can be integrated into the campaign. The Consultant shall work with SCAG, the Go Human Steering Committee, and stakeholders to determine the extent to which existing collateral can be repurposed to incorporate new messaging and what additional collateral might be needed. New collateral may include new photography, artwork, and radio advertisements. The Consultant shall present its findings to SCAG in either a memo or a short PowerPoint presentation. SCAG GIS services will be available to conduct analysis related to high injury networks and the identification of collision factors.

2.3 Focus Groups

The Consultant shall conduct a series of focus groups or one-on-one interviews with local residents and drivers. A minimum of two (2) focus groups or twenty (20) interviews shall be conducted in each county. Approximately half of the participants should be Spanish speakers. These sessions will focus on reviewing the proposed messages and images and will provide qualitative data to help refine final message content. SCAG and its partners can provide meeting space as needed for focus groups. Costs for meeting space should not be included in the proposal.

Task 3 Collateral Development

3.1 Photography, Graphics and Model Selection

Depending on the outcome of the Vision Zero Integration and Focus Group tasks, the Consultant will work with SCAG to develop either a new set of campaign images and/or taglines or work to expand the existing campaign collateral. It is expected that upon completion of the Vision Zero Integration and Focus Groups that new images and graphics will be needed to expand the Go Human campaign. The Consultant shall coordinate the selection of models and development of all visuals and copy needed to develop the campaign collateral.

The Consultant will take into account the unique demographic characteristics of the SCAG region when selecting models and developing artwork. When selecting talent, the Consultant shall develop a proposed list of visuals and models to be reviewed by the SCAG Project Manager and the Go Human Steering Committee that details model demographics and provides sample images.

The Consultant will coordinate professional photography services and a model search/selection process. The Consultant will ensure that photography will take place in a professional studio environment, and that photographic equipment used will generate a high quality image suitable for large images up to standard billboard sizes. The Consultant and photographer shall meet the following minimum parameters:

• Shot in Raw format: Approx. 25MB images (5616 x 3744 pixels)
• Shot against a green screen or another solid color screen to make clipping easier
• Shot in controlled environment with studio lighting so the subject is well lit but features are not blown out

Following photography, the Consultant will edit, touch up and cut out images.

3.2 Radio Ad Development

The Consultant shall review the current Go Human radio advertisement (http://gohumansocal.org/Pages/MoreToCome.aspx) and develop a new radio advertisement that captures the lessons learned from the Vision Zero Integration and Focus Groups tasks. The radio advertisement shall be developed for both 15 and 30 second radio slots and shall be produced in both English and Spanish. If during the planning stages the SCAG Project Manager deems it necessary, the Consultant may need to produce several versions of the advertisements to address different bicycle, pedestrian, and driver behaviors.

3.3 Donated Media Coordination

SCAG will be offering the opportunity to participate in the Go Human Campaign to its county, city and regional partners who can donate additional advertisement space. The Consultant shall resize the campaign collateral to meet the needs of these partners, including incorporating partner logos per the brand guidelines. The Consultant will be responsible for printing and shipping all materials. Materials may include, but not be limited to, bus shelter ads, billboards, lawn signs, bus wraps, on-board bus ads, and any other creative products.

3.4 Social Media/Mobile Resources

The Consultant shall develop a variety of campaign collateral sized for social media and mobile devices to target diverse user groups to ensure successful click-through rates. In addition, the Consultant shall develop 2-4 animated ads or GIFs, combined with a static back-up in case the platform where the ad is placed does not except the animated format. As part of the Advertising Strategy, the Consultant shall identify the mix of media purchases that will be set aside for social media and mobile with the goals of campaign awareness as well as growing Go Human’s online presence.

Task 4: Implementation

4.1 Advertising Strategy Implementation

The Consultant shall purchase (2) two flights of media across the SCAG region. Advertisements will run in May 2018 (focused on drivers and bicyclists to coincide with Bike Month) and in mid-July through mid-August 2018 (focused on drivers and pedestrians to coincide with back to school efforts and anticipation of shorter daylight hours in the fall). Advertisements will be focused on collision hot spots.

4.2  Advertising Strategy Evaluation

The Consultant will provide a short report summarizing the number of impressions achieved through each type of media used in the Campaign. At a minimum the Consultant will describe and assess separately the effectiveness of “paid and donated” printed messages by providing: (1) Number of messages produced, (2) Subject of each message, (3) Number of printings for each message, (4) Total size of audience reached, (5), Total cost or donated value. The Consultant shall include a summary of the data collected in the final report.

4.3  Advertising Campaign Evaluation

Using an existing survey tool, the Consultant will conduct an online survey in English and Spanish to judge the effectiveness of the Campaign messages. The 2015 evaluation report can be accessed here: http://gohumansocal.org/Documents/Resources/Advertising%20Evaluation%20Research%20Highlights.    pdf

All campaign reports can be accessed here: http://gohumansocal.org/Pages/MoreToCome.aspx

The goal of the campaign is to achieve a 35% recognition rate across survey respondents for the campaign. The Consultant shall collect a representative sample of 600 complete survey responses. The Consultant will create a presentation summarizing the results of the survey to the SCAG Project Manager for review and approval. In addition, the Consultant shall also summarize the data collected in the Final Report.

Task 5: Local Community Engagement

5.1  Graphics Support For Community Engagement

SCAG will be partnering with six local communities to initiate local engagement around traffic safety. As part of this contract, the Consultant shall provide Go Human artwork for local partners. This will require the Consultant to resize and co-brand materials developed as part of the larger campaign but will not require new creative to be developed. Examples could include: posters, lawn signs, fliers, post cards, street banners, etc.

5.2  Go Human Media Buys

The Consultant shall place small social media buys (or, when requested by city partners, limited amounts of print or radio ads with a variety of outlets) for up to twelve (12) Go Human events and tactical urbanism projects. Ads will be developed by SCAG’s internal communications team and will complement the campaign’s larger media efforts by aligning demonstration projects and event efforts with the larger media campaign goals. The Consultant will place media buys based on a unique, modest ad plan per event, provided by SCAG. Media buys will include print, radio and/or web advertisements to ensure events are well attended.

5.3 Local Community Engagement Evaluation

The Consultant shall provide documentation and analytics for Go Human event ad buys and estimates of the impact of the community engagement collateral. This will include documentation for efforts with partner agencies, the total number of added impressions, and partnerships developed. Documentation shall be included in the final report.

Due Date:

October 18, 2017

Address:

Lori J. Tapp, C.P.M., Contracts Administrator
Southern California Association of Governments
818 W. 7th Street, 12th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017-3435

Strong California agencies include Burson Marsteller and Shift Communications.