Title
Contract for Marketing Services (B)
Explanation
As an enterprise of the City, GRU promotes products and services in order to inform customers, improve services, and position the utility as an effective competitor. This in turn allows us to continue to provide a superior return to the City's General Fund.
In the past, we have managed our marketing and communication efforts on an issue by issue or event by event basis-using a variety of companies to deliver information to customers. This has sometimes resulted in a duplication of effort and inconsistent messages. While we have performed some initial customer research, we need to know more about our customers' wants and needs and how we can differentiate ourselves from competitors. This in turn will allow us to make the best use of our marketing dollars.
Competition is here in telecommunications and natural gas and will continue to increase in the electric industry. We believe it is imperative that we continue to make an investment in a marketing strategy to position the utility for current and future competition. We want to better inform our customers and community about our new products and services, changes in our organization and the industry, and special programs. Some of these programs include safety issues and emergency response such as how to safely use a generator, water and energy conservation such as Energy Star, GRUCom and GRUNet, natural gas services, "green energy" programs and products-and others.
To accomplish this, we developed an RFP for a full-service marketing agency. This RFP was issued by Utilities Purchasing to 11 firms, and 9 firms responded with proposals. The proposals were evaluated in accordance with the criteria established by the RFP. As indicated on the attached tabulation of the evaluation, Cramer-Krasselt of Orlando was evaluated as the top firm. We are recommending that this agency serve as the lead in helping us strategically position the utility for a more ...
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