NYCEDC – New York City Economic Development Corp Seeks Marketing Agency & PR Firm

The NYCEDC – New York City Economic Development Corp seeks a marketing agency and PR firm. NYCEDC manages a system of major public retail markets in New York City (“NYC”). These historic public retail markets serve as a critical component of the food retail infrastructure for New York City’s communities.

The public retail markets strive to achieve the City’s double bottom line goals by:

Providing small business assistance to vendors, allowing them to thrive in place (anti- gentrification);

1. Promoting the market’s unique history and the role of the community to create city-wide destination;
2. Providing access to affordable, healthy and diverse food options;
3. Connecting the markets and vendors to the surrounding communities through events, programming and partnerships with local community stakeholders.

The Consultant will perform a strategic analysis and formulate a 360-degree communication strategy for the entire public market system in NYC. The Consultant will provide fully integrated and direct communication support for the three New York City public retail markets that NYCEDC directly manages: La Marqueta in East Harlem, Moore Street Market in East Williamsburg, and Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. In addition, the Consultant will provide guidance on strategy and tactics for integration with the other markets in the public retail market system (e.g. Arthur Avenue Market) as well as support for the creation of new markets through partnership or direct management.

The Consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

1. Strategic Planning and Development of Marketing Content
   • Generate strategic ideas for the positioning of the public retail market system in general, and each directly managed market in specific, using the current mission as a guide.
   • Develop a plan for the scope and scale of communication content, including PR, marketing, social media and advertising. Such a plan should explicitly consider monthly newsletters (printed, direct mailed, and electronic), community relations management, expansion, and events/programming.
     • Consultant will propose such strategic ideas to NYCEDC on a regular basis as implementation proceeds on the other elements of the scope.

2. Positioning and Demographic Targeting
   • Using the mission above and NYCEDC values as a guide, develop the unique value proposition and market positioning of the markets as a whole. A competitive set should be developed in the NYC market and comparisons drawn.
   • Comparable product types in other cities should be considered for inspiration.
   • Core demographics to target should be identified, and described in terms of traditional demographics and psychographics.
   • A clear set of metrics for success should be developed in light of both reach (impressions within each demographic), participation (for digital) and retail foot traffic generation. This should include:
     • Neighborhood demographics such as youth and elders
     • Low-income families for other neighborhoods adjacent
     • Cultural affinity groups for the unique culture represented by the market
     • Tourists visiting NYC
       • Trade, press and social should be heavily relied upon for expanding reach of the budget.
3.  Branding
   • Develop an overall strategy and brand architecture that appropriately reflects the new mission and roll-out of the directly managed markets while presenting an opportunity for partnership and alignment of all of New York City’s public retail market assets.
     • Such work shall comprise the development of a consistent brandmark, market logo design, tagline, messaging, as well as the creation of brand guidelines and template advertisement/flyers for partner events.
     • The brand positioning and branding should be aligned with NYCEDC’s strategic plan.
4. Marketing and other Activities
   • Build awareness of New York City’s public market system as a whole.
   • Build positive market impressions about New York City’s public retail markets individually amongst customers, leveraging the system to have local impact.
     • In doing so, Consultant shall align advertising to each market’s unique cultural presence and historical timeline.
   • Position the market to attract a diverse mix of market customers through targeted efforts in each demographic:
     • Amongst at-risk groups such as low-income families to promote markets as places of great value by enticing low income families and individuals to redeem SNAP benefits at the market.
     • Within neighborhoods, build awareness of each individual market through aggressive marketing of events, shopping days, and programming. Additionally, brainstorm events and programming that can promote community and goodwill.
     • Promote New York City’s public retail markets to tourists and NYC visitors as places of a unique shopping experience.
     • With cultural affinity groups, help understand what within the merchandising mix and programming will attract more support from those groups to each market.
   • Provide promotional and marketing support to individual market vendors by name in targeted advertisings and special events.
   • Develop a retail market system newsletter (digital and print), focused around a monthly events calendar, promotions and stories from each particular market. Create a direct mail and online subscription strategy.
   • Assist in building relationships with stakeholders in target market segments and the broader private market.

5. Digital
   • Create a friendly, usable, mobile-ready website to showcase New York City’s public retail markets, under a single domain name, that highlights the history and cultural significance of the markets, vendors, events and programming.
   • Create a website that allows users to sign-up for newsletter; download market vendor applications and other pertinent market-ready enquiries and forms.
   • Create and maintain a strong social media presence to keep customers up to date on events, new and old vendors, and market news.
   • Create an electronic version of the monthly market newsletter to showcase events and market news at all markets.
   • Identify and partner with bloggers who can generate positive content about New York City’s public retail markets.
   • Develop strategies for increasing social presence and unearned media.
   • Serve as curator of the overall digital community for the markets.

6. Events & Programming
   • Assist in the evaluation of the current event calendar, and identify strengths and weaknesses relative to the anticipated positioning of each individual market and the market system as a whole. Suggest additions as appropriate.
   • Assist in the evaluation and/or attraction of special events and festivals at each location to highlight and promote both the individual market and New York City’s public retail market system.
   • Assist in the attraction of site-specific cultural presentations (book signings, unplugged music shows, cooking classes, etc.) that underscore the cultural role of the markets and surrounding neighborhoods.
   • Assist in a “big think” on the creation of a special yearly grand public markets festival to raise the media profile of New York City’s public retail markets.

7. Public Relations
   • Help attract media interest in New York City’s public retail markets, including radio, TV and print media.
     • Help develop local “champions” in media for the markets.
   • Assist in building relationships with affiliates and taste makers in other cities to help reinforce the place in NYC for the markets.
   • Assist in connecting with stakeholders that will respond as champions to our new mission, specifically around thrive-in-place and cultural relevancy.
   • Assist in building relationships with stakeholders in public institutions.
     • Such institutions may include, but are not limited to, local resident and community development organizations, and schools.
8. Research
   • Assist with quantifying marketing and promotions metrics.
     • Such metrics may include, but are not limited to, number of website visits, social media followers, etc.
   • Assist with communicating information about quantified double-bottom-line impacts of New York City’s public retail markets through the use of marketing metrics.
   • Such quantification may include, but is not limited to, evidencing discounted pricing relative to market-rate pricing of food goods, and the amount of sales attributable to low-income residents of the neighboring communities and low- income consumers generally.
   • Assist with event data capture, in terms of taking pictures and collecting active attendee information.

Proposal due February 22nd, 2017

NYCEDC
110 William Street New York, NY 10038
Attention:  Maryann Catalano, Senior Vice President, Contracts

Possible candidates for this assignment could include Sheinkopf Communications, DKC PR or Rubenstein Communications.