The review for the New York State Department of Health’s $20 million anti-tobacco account has been delayed by at least two months because the guidelines in the original questionnaire were too broad, a DOH executive said.
Questionnaires were due Nov. 13, but were reissued in late January with a new Feb. 20 deadline, said Christine Salmon, director of the state DOH’s Bureau of Health Promotion.
“This is such an open-ended RFP that the [first] responses were all over the place,” Salmon said.
She said 16 shops, mostly in New York, have responded to the revised RFP. She declined to identify them.
The review is for creative and media planning duties on a print and TV anti-tobacco campaign targeting 12- to 17-year-olds [Adweek, Nov. 13].
The first RFP specified what each agency should include in its financial proposal, but did not provide space for cost-breakdown information such as printing and dubbing.
The revised RFP will clarify agency budget differences, she said.
The Evaluation Committee meets today to begin assessing creative submissions. It is expected to finish by week’s end and will present its creative scores to the Selection Committee. A meeting date for the latter has not yet been set.
“They may make a decision right then and there,” Salmon said of the Selection Committee, but a cut is more likely. “There’s a real eagerness on the part of the department to get this campaign underway,” she added.
Flawed RFP Delays DOH Review
