Requests For Proposals

Post Date: February 24, 2023

This is a truncated version of the RFP. You can view the entire RFP here. 

Purpose

The purpose of this Request for Proposal is to seek and retain a qualified, innovative agency to provide creative support, media strategy, planning, management and buying services.

Project Overview

In 2022, San Francisco Travel identified the need to launch a high-reach brand campaign to hasten the city’s recovery and counteract negative media messages that became especially prevalent during the height of the pandemic. San Francisco Travel has developed an approved campaign concept and was recently awarded a multi-million dollar EDA subgrant by Visit California and an economic development grant from the San Francisco Office of Workforce Development. These services will support the launch of a $4.7MM domestic high-reach brand campaign in 2023 to drive visitation to San Francisco. The project must be billed in full by December 31, 2023. Once selected, the agency must be prepared to begin work with San Francisco Travel immediately.

This project is funded through a grant provided by Visit California through an award under Federal Grant Award 07-79-07802 by the Economic Development Administration under §703 and 209 of the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C.  §§ 3149 and 3233.  As a result, all vendors awarded contracts must be willing to abide by all required provisions of federal laws and regulations, including without limitation 2 CFR §§200.326 and 200.327.

In accordance with 2 CFR 170.200 (Federal awarding agency reporting requirements), Federal awarding agencies are required to publicly report Federal awards that equal or exceed the micro-purchase threshold ($10,000) and publish the required information on a public-facing, OMB-designated, governmentwide website and follow OMB guidance to support Transparency Act implementation.

San Francisco Travel Association hereby notifies all bidders that it will affirmatively ensure that in any contract entered into pursuant to this advertisement, minority business enterprises will be afforded full opportunity to submit bids in response to this invitation and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin or any other basis protected by applicable law.

Any Contract awarded through this RFP is dependent on a federal grant award, the San Francisco Tourism Association reserves the right to reduce the level of services to match reduced levels of funding, or at its option, may terminate this Contract, should the funding source no longer be available, or the amount be reduced.

Scope of Work

• Provide a comprehensive research-based media strategy for the brand campaign
• Identify key target audiences
• Identify KPIs to measure performance
• Recommend specific tactics across all channels
• Measure against established benchmarks
• Execution of an RFP process with media vendors
• Evaluation of media proposals
• Delivery of comprehensive media plan and flowchart
• Media vendor management and communication
• Buying services and placing of all insertion orders
• Manage campaign optimizations and make recommendations to increase ROI
• Ongoing review of media opportunities
• Provide monthly reporting of KPIs
• Creative support as needed for the campaign (extension of current approved campaign concept)

The project partner will be expected to take the lead during all project phases, working with direction from the San Francisco Travel global marketing team.

Proposal Requirements

In a maximum of 10 pages, please provide the following information:

Company Background

Please include the following items:

• A letter of interest;
• A description of your company’s primary services;
• The year in which your company was formed;
• The address from which the primary work on the contract would be performed;
• Numbers of total employees and contractors; and
• A current and past client list.

Conflict of Interest

Please list all tourism-related clients for whom you have acted during the past 12 months. Please include a brief description of the type of activity and services you provide.

Company Management & Staff

Please include the following items:

• The contract manager for this scope of work; and
• The individuals who will be conducting the day-to-day work.

For all individuals assigned to this account, please provide:

• Current resumes/biographies demonstrating qualifications related to this RFP; and
• Length of time with your company

Case Studies

Showcase studies (minimum of three) with demonstrated results relevant to San Francisco Travel (scale, industry)

Miscellaneous

• Please describe your familiarity with San Francisco and experience working with Destination Marketing Organizations.

General project questions

• Please describe your process for planning media, including how you establish goals, select partners and approach targeting given the estimated budget.
• List the project phases and key milestones typically used when developing a comprehensive, multi-million dollar media plan.
• Please describe your approach to optimization during the span of a project.
• Please describe your approach to client service, including your process for handling one-off requests, your average response time, and escalation process. Comment on the process used when beginning a relationship with a new client.
• Please describe your approach to reporting and how you work with custom reporting requirements.
• Please describe your access to industry-based research.
• Please provide an overview of your capabilities to provide creative/digital production support.

Budget

The current media budget for this project is $4,700,000 inclusive of fees.

• Please provide an overview of your fee structure for services.
• Demonstrate financial viability for maintaining a budget of this size.
• Please provide a method of billing for work.

Proposal Evaluation

San Francisco Travel will form a committee to evaluate the written proposals. The criteria for the scoring of the proposals is included in Attachment A. The committee may at any time during the evaluation process, seek clarification from Proposers regarding any information contained within their proposal. Final scores for each Proposer will reflect a consensus of the evaluation committee. Any attempt by an agency to contact a member of the evaluation committee outside the RFP process to gain knowledge or advantage may result in the disqualification of the Proposer.

The top finalists chosen by the evaluation committee will be asked to provide virtual presentations to the evaluation committee. All proposers and key team members working on the account should ensure they are available for the virtual presentation during the dates presented in the key dates schedule. After the virtual presentations, there will be a question and answer period. You will be notified of the total presentation time. The criteria for the scoring of the oral presentations is included as Attachment B.

Reserved Rights

All proposals submitted shall become the property of San Francisco Travel and shall not be returned to the Proposer. San Francisco Travel also reserves the right to:

• Reject any and all bids;
• Cancel this RFP;
• Revise the amount of funds available under this RFP;
• Amend this RFP as needed; and
• Not select a vendor and award a contract from this RFP

Submission Instructions

Preferred Delivery: Electronic (PDF)

Deliver to: [email protected]. Due date: 3/27/23, no later than 5 PM.

Inquiries

All inquiries regarding this RFP should be directed to:

Dan Rosenbaum
Vice President, Global Marketing
San Francisco Travel Association
1 Front Street, Suite 2900
San Francisco, CA 94111
p: 415.227.2697
e: [email protected]

If there are any questions, please submit them by March 15, 2023. The answers will be posted here.

Can we attach an appendix to include resumes or case studies?

Yes, this can be separate from the 10-page limit

Does a detailed media plan need to be included in the RFP submission?

No, a detailed media plan is not necessary to understand your media planning and buying capabilities. However, if you think a sample media plan will help to illustrate what you can do, please include it.

The RFP mentions "creative support" - do we need to budget any creatives necessary from the $4.7M or will that be a separate budget? 

Creative support will come from a separate budget.

The RFP mentions "high-reach brand campaigns" - does this mean the main KPI will be for awareness vs. conversion?

Yes, the main KPI is awareness and reach.

What is the structure of the final presentations?

Finalists will be expected to present for one hour. It’s 45 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes of Q&A. The presentation can be expanded upon from the RFP submission, but it will have to fall within the parameters mentioned.

Can you further define the primary goal of this campaign (visitation)?

We are looking for a campaign that moves our audience through the many stages of trip planning from dreaming, consideration and ultimately, visitation. We are looking at a variety of KPIs that will show the impact of this campaign from awareness/perception, site traffic, engagement, and hotel room nights.

Normally our KPIs are hotel room nights and site traffic. For this campaign, we want to track awareness/reach, and engagement along with hotel room nights and qualified site traffic.

Do you see this campaign prioritizing consumer audiences, business audiences, or both?

This campaign will be prioritizing the leisure audience. However, we will be running our leisure-focused media in markets where there are a lot of meeting planners. We hope that they are exposed to the leisure message which will translate into more meetings business.

Can you define “creative support” in more detail?

Depending on the size and specs of the media we are running, we will need creative support to create the media to the exact specifications.

Do you have an external creative agency, or are you building/designing the campaign in-house from concept to final materials?

We have been working with an external creative agency for more than a year from concept to final materials. We already have a campaign concept, the 30s, 15s and 6s video and mock-up digital ad concepts. We are looking for an agency to help amplify the creative.

Are there any key areas we should focus on in regard to our research?

This is the first campaign we are running with a significant media budget. We want to leverage high-reach channels, like TV and OOH, to elevate the San Francisco brand above the noise. We want to create a digital layer in our media plan that will meet our audience where they spend a lot of time. A digital layer is also important to our KPIs/measurement.

Post Date: February 14, 2023

Campaign Overview & Goals

Why do people visit San Francisco? The sights and scenery. The one-of-a-kind events and world-class food. The welcoming people, the diversity and the rich history. Clearly, San Francisco's attraction (and the greater Bay Area) is not one thing but a combination of many different things. In 2023, San Francisco Travel wants to help people from the APAC region arrange their trips to the city and generate economic impact.

A creative performance-driven marketing campaign will highlight San Francisco’s iconic offerings and new attractions, invite consumers to visit and increase our market share. The primary goal of this campaign will be to drive direct hotel room nights and hotel revenue.

This project is funded through a grant provided by Visit California through an award under Federal Grant Award 07-79-07802 by the Economic Development Administration under §703 and 209 of the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C.  §§ 3149 and 3233.  As a result, all vendors awarded contracts must be willing to abide by all required provisions of federal laws and regulations, including without limitation 2 CFR §§200.326 and 200.327.

In accordance with 2 CFR 170.200 (Federal awarding agency reporting requirements), Federal awarding agencies are required to publicly report Federal awards that equal or exceed the micro-purchase threshold ($10,000) and publish the required information on a public-facing, OMB-designated, governmentwide website and follow OMB guidance to support Transparency Act implementation.

San Francisco Tourism Association hereby notifies all bidders that it will affirmatively ensure that in any contract entered into pursuant to this advertisement, minority business enterprises will be afforded full opportunity to submit bids in response to this invitation and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin or any other basis protected by applicable law.

Any Contract awarded through this RFP is dependent on a federal grant award, the San Francisco Tourism Association reserves the right to reduce the level of services to match reduced levels of funding, or at its option, may terminate this Contract, should the funding source no longer be available, or the amount be reduced.

The campaign KPIs are as follows:

• Hotel room nights down to the property level
• Hotel room revenue
• Additional sponsorship dollars raised

The secondary goals are as follows:

• Website Traffic
• Impressions
• Reach
• Earned media

Targets

International Markets

• China
• Korea
• Japan

Audience

• A25-54
• Travel Intenders, general travel interest
• Interest in sightseeing, arts & culture, LGBTQ+, food/culinary, San Francisco
• Interest/intent to travel to competitive destinations (i.e. NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, Washington DC, Miami)

Campaign Timing

• TBD

Budget

The budget is $355,000* inclusive of fees:

• Please provide an overview of your fee structure for services, including fees for additional partners.
• Demonstrate financial viability for maintaining a budget of this size.
• Please provide method of billing for work.

*This is San Francisco Travel’s seed budget. The program, through San Francisco Travel, must be built as a co-op for hotels, DMOs and/or brands to participate in. The funds raised will be used to increase the overall value of the media buy.

Tactics to be Considered

• We are interested in dedicated in-language San Francisco landing pages, where we can feature hotel products and other destination partners and/or sponsors.
• We want to work with the OTA and tour operators on a suite of assets to promote the destination.
• This integrated campaign must be multi-channel and include a mix of digital media that drives to our conversion partners and San Francisco landing pages.

Proposal Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Were all RFP requirements met and questions answered?
• Are there opportunities to co-op the campaign to members/sponsors?
• Proposal creativity and rationale for the elements proposed
• Hotel room night forecast
• Cost efficiency and overall program value
• The added value provided – preferred added value elements include
  • Added impressions/reach
  • Premium placements

Attachment A is the scorecard that will be used for evaluation.

RFP Questions & Requirements

Please provide your proposal in the form of:

1. An excel document showing all line item details (impressions, rates, units, etc), preferably with formulas
2. A supporting deck, including visual examples of any creative proposed and clear answers to all of the following questions:

• What is your unique position in a crowded digital marketplace and your point of differentiation from your competitors?
• How will you reach our target audiences? Please include any and all details on first- and third-party data segments you would utilize
• How are your proposed tactics going to drive hotel room nights? And what is the room night forecast/guarantee?
• Are there any spending minimums for the tactics proposed?
• What sponsor opportunities can be created out of this campaign?

Proposals are due no later than by EOD Friday, 3/24. Please email responses to
[email protected]. Please reach out with any questions, and thank you in advance for your response.
 

Why is the campaign timing TBD?

We want to maximize the hotel room nights generated by this program. The campaign timing should be determined by the volume of hotel room nights generated by market during the year.

What is the campaign end date?

All program costs need to be spent and invoiced by no later than December 31, 2023.

Is it mandatory that the proposal include Korea, Japan and China?

No. It can include all of those markets, some of them, or just one of them, depending on the maximization of hotel room nights as recommended by the proposal.

What does the budget include?

The budget includes production, agency and media costs. The budget covers the entire APAC region.

Is there a key message for the campaign?

Our messaging in domestic markets is Always San Francisco. We want this umbrella theme to be used in international markets with the flexibility to change from market to market.

What sponsorship opportunities should be considered?

Sponsorship opportunities should be built into the program to allow us to plug in partners. Opportunities should be looked at by vertical (hotel, destination, airline, rental car), and buy-in price. We are also open to non-endemic travel brands.

If there are any additional questions, please submit them by February 28, 2023. The answers will be posted here.