THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS, MARKETING, AND BRAND MANAGEMENT REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Advertising Agency of Record

Proposals will be due on Tuesday, August 1, 2023 at 2 p.m.

PURPOSE

The College of New Jersey is a highly competitive institution of higher education that actively recruits students into its undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs. The college is seeking to partner with a full-service advertising agency that will be responsible for advising on, planning, buying, developing, executing, and analyzing advertising opportunities and campaigns in support of both short- and long-term goals. Long-term goals would include driving awareness of TCNJ as the premier public college in the region; short-term goals would entail driving leads and applications as a whole and for individual programs.

SCOPE OF WORK

The college is seeking an agency that has demonstrated experience in the higher education sector and familiarity with the New Jersey and New York/Philadelphia metro geographies, audiences, and media habits. The selected agency will recommend strategies, media, and messaging suitable to realizing the college’s goals. Responsibilities will include delivering all creative content, handling media buying, and performing campaign evaluation and optimization.

Advertising campaigns may include:

• Institutional advertising for brand building
• Undergraduate student recruitment to drive applications and yield

The agency will advise on and employ marketing strategies that may include both traditional and new media. Most recently, TCNJ’s campaigns have employed out of home, radio, search engine marketing, and a variety of social media and digital display advertising. Moving forward, the college is open to these and other tactics based on agency recommendations.

Collaboration

The agency will primarily work with the Offices of Communications, Marketing, and Brand Management and Undergraduate Admissions, but may be called upon to work directly with individual schools on smaller school-based campaigns including but not limited to the School of Engineering and the School of the Arts and Communication.

In all cases, the agency must obtain approval from the Office of Communications, Marketing, and Brand Management for all final layouts, copy, or artwork, regardless of college client, before releasing any final material.

Creative Production

The agency will develop, design, and produce advertising copy, layouts, designs, web assets, and artwork for advertising placements. Creative is expected to be grammatically correct, error-free, and developed in accordance with any agreed-upon direction from the college, including TCNJ’s graphic standards and editorial style guide. The agency will deliver such material in a timely manner to the college for approval and then to the vendor for production.

Proposals must detail the agency’s creative development process for designs and artwork, written copy, video production, and web assets, as appropriate. Details must include:

• Number of initial concepts at onset of project
• Number of proof/revisions rounds once concept is chosen
• All fees and expenses associated with this work.