The US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has a continuing requirement for the National Education Campaign and Outreach Contract (NEC).

CMS administers a variety of programs, including, but not limited to Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Health Insurance Marketplace. As the largest healthcare payer, CMS serves more than 150 million people and is dedicated to advancing health equity, expanding coverage, and improving health outcomes. CMS is responsible for conducting national communications campaigns to promote these programs and other CMS initiatives to consumers, providers, and other key audiences.

CMS is seeking Contractor support to develop, implement, and evaluate national integrated communications campaigns (see Appendix A for the types of support that would be required). Specifically, vendors must demonstrate that they have extensive and successful experience in providing a full range of activities associated with researching, developing, producing, delivering, and evaluating health communications campaigns and initiatives coordinated with both internal and external stakeholders at a national, regional, state, and local level.

The current National Education Campaign and Outreach Contract (NEC) contractors are: • Daniel J. Edelman, Inc. • Ketchum Public Relations • Porter Novelli Public Relations Inc. IPG DXTRA, Inc. (dba: Weber Shandwick)

• The Contractor Shall:
  • Strategic Planning: Propose a comprehensive campaign strategy and corresponding tactics built on tried and true tactics and the latest industry innovations to reach target audiences and motivate behavior change
  • Creative Development and Production: Design and produce creative materials that resonate with target audiences, emphasize key messages, and motivate behavior change
  • Paid Advertising: Coordinate all facets of media planning and buying on behalf of CMS. This includes Media Return on Investment (ROI) and Attribution Modeling to measure the impact of media and other marketing and external factors based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For example, the model could address the following:
    • Point of diminishing returns by media channel
    • Best flighting pattern to maximize return on investment
    • Evidence of synergy between media elements
    • An optimal media mix of traditional and digital advertising assets
  • Digital Advertising: Execute data-driven digital advertising approved under media planning and buying tasks, such as paid search, social, display, mobile, video, etc. Understand targeting capabilities and audience segmentation. Develop methods to monitor, track and optimize the digital paid media spending on a day-by-day and weekly basis with ongoing creative testing and daily spending reports. Utilize media buying analysis tools to assure brand safety and avoid media placement fraud
  • Social Media: Support organic content development and community management of owned social media channels
  • Direct Response: Possess expertise in data infrastructure coordination and execution, such as email marketing, SMS, and outbound call marketing. Oversee CMS database marketing and direct response tactics. Have experience in daily data operations, content development, and outreach analytics support including but not limited to:
    • List development
    • Query development
    • Email, SMS, and Outbound Call Content Development
    • Direct Response Calendar and Testing Plan Development
    • Reporting and Analysis
  • Public Relations: Develop and execute multi-faceted public relations campaigns for a wide range of audience sizes and types (i.e., from national to local levels, the general population to specific target populations). Elements to include planning, material development, earned media outreach, event coordination, and partner relations
  • Monitoring/Tracking: Develop and apply rigorous quantitative measures to track and evaluate the effectiveness of all national campaign programs, including the aforementioned media ROI modeling. Possess expertise in privacy requirements with tag management and audience segmentation targeting