Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency Seeks Communications Agency
SCV Water is seeking a communications agency to provide a comprehensive communications plan, including customer education and engagement services for the new agency.
Background:
Under Senate Bill 634, effective January 1, 2018, the Castaic Lake Water Agency, Newhall County Water District, Santa Clarita Water Division, and, following shortly thereafter, the Valencia Water Company, will become the Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency (SCV Water). SCV Water will be both a regional wholesale and retail agency delivering water to a population of 273,000 people within a service area of approximately 200 square miles including the communities of Canyon Country, Castaic, Newhall, Saugus, Stevenson Ranch, Valencia, and other unincorporated portions of Los Angeles County. About half of the water provided by SCV Water will come from local groundwater.
Scope of Work:
- Create an immediate six-month customer communication campaign for SCV Water, including a media buy (respondents may propose different levels of a media buy)
- The six-month campaign should include an education component regarding how Newhall County Water District, Santa Clarita Water Division and Valencia Water Firm customers are transitioning from stand-alone water utilities to divisions of SCV Water and what that means in terms of bill payment, service requests, Web-pay and other such activities.
- Conduct a workshop with the new Board of Directors to identify a mission, tagline and core values;
- Conduct a workshop with staff for feedback and refinement of a mission statement, tagline and core values;
- Engage with the public to give input into the mission, tagline and values;
- Review several recent customer surveys regarding water district and agency identities and key issues of agencies/districts involved;
- Review and analyze existing communication tools and provide recommendations on how to transition the new SCV Water with existing resources including signs, vehicle fleets, social media, including e-blasts and other tools;
- Prepare and present to the Board of Directors a creative brief including three directions for messaging and three designs for logo, key collateral material, presentation template, and web site home page;
- Prepare a visual identity style guide with chosen messaging, logo and design (palette);
- Prepare a rollout schedule; and
- Conduct a communications audit of SCV Water collateral materials after a six-month period to make sure communication is consistent and in keeping with the visual identity style guide.
To give a sense of the information that will need to be unified, currently, the organizations forming SCV Water have the following web sites:
- yourscvwater.com (merger-related)
- clwa.org
- clwa.org/docs (agendas/packets)
- CLWA – emergency splash pages
- conservation.clwa.org (residential)
- commercialconservation.clwa.org
- santaclaritaplants.clwa.org
- ncwd.org
- scwater.org and santaclaritawater.com
- valenciawater.com
- SCVh2o.org
- Santaclaritagardens.com
A new SCV Water web site will be built in an entirely separate contract, but the look and feel of the site is under the auspices of this contract. There are also a variety of logos currently in place. The current plan is to have a contest of staff to select potential logos, then for the communications consultant to refine the top logos and then the board to choose a final logo.
Due Date:
October 27th
Address:
Castaic Lake Water Agency
Administration Building
27234 Bouquet Canyon Road
Santa Clarita, CA 91350
Cohn & Wolfe and Finn Partners are strong candidates for this assignment.
