"Ve haf vays of making you enjoy caucuses"
Oh shucks. The deadline just passed for one of the greatest possible opportunities in the field of "Advertising". Chugging along as though the Nov. 15th scheme for caucuses etc were still going somewhere, one department in the "Coalition" Provisional Authority in Iraq has been soliciting bids for an advertising campaign,
- designed to (1) inform and educate the Iraqi people about the transition to sovereignty and the caucus/electoral process leading to a democratically elected Government in Iraq, (2) encourage Iraqi participation (call to action) in the caucus/electoral process, and (3) build support and credibility for new Transitional Assembly.
Part of the solicited ad campaign would aim at, "Develop[ing] 'branding' to include a symbol and slogan for this 'transitional campaign' [of managed political caucuses] that ties together all of its facets into a coherent national program."
Oh, so they admit they don't have a coherent national program going into this process, and need an advertising agency to help formulate one for them?
Like the late-lamented "public diplomacy" program that advertising maven Charlotte Beers put together for the State Department in the Middle East 18 months or so ago to such little effect?
This time, though, it's going to be even better, because it's going to be out-sourced from the get-go, don't you understand?
Out-sourcing = lots of fat profits for someone!! And this little advertising goose looks set to lay many extremely lucrative golden eggs. Right down there at the bottom of the bid-solicitation document posted on the CPA website it describes how any bids submitted will be evaluated:
- Evaluation criteria include:
A. Management
* Experience and qualifications of assigned project team(s)
* Demonstrated expertise as evidenced by examples of past work and creative samples
B. Technical
* Demonstrated understanding of aggregate and subgroups of Middle Eastern and Iraqi audiences, and existing barriers and opportunities for communication...
C. Cost (not scored)
* Cost will be evaluated for reasonableness and that proposed costs are commensurate with the offeror?s technical approach.
D. Past Performance
* Quality of services to be provided as evidenced through demonstrated past performance will be evaluated.
Technical, Past Performance, and Management are relatively equal and are more important than cost.