Cranford Co. Leads Pack in Smoking Cessation Campaign

CJRW's marketing for the state's Stamp Out Smoking campaign has included these two parody advertisements.

Talk about breaking a habit.

For the first time in nearly 18 years, the Arkansas Department of Health’s stop-smoking media campaign is apparently heading not to Little Rock marketing stalwart CJRW, but to a rival.

Cranford Co., a competitor down the street led by former CJRW executive Ross Cranford, received notice June 7 that it is the state’s favored vendor for the Tobacco Cessation & Prevention advertising account.

The “anticipation to award” was a bit ironic, considering that Ross Cranford worked on the Stamp Out Smoking campaign when he was at CJRW, a firm co-founded by his father, Wayne Cranford.

“It’s a one-year contract, with up to six additional one-year terms, with a $2 million budget per year,” one Little Rock advertising executive and former Cranford colleague told Whispers. “So the total contract could potentially be worth $14 million.”

Ross Cranford had no comment, referring questions to Timothy J. O’Brien, who heads the Health Department’s procurement/support branch.

“We have issued the anticipation to award announcement, which gives other vendors notification and establishes a two-week waiting period before the contract can be awarded,” O’Brien said. “It’s basically a protest period, and that will end next Friday [June 21].”

CJRW finished third in scoring of proposals, with 573.33 points.

Cranford Co. scored 736.67 in the pitch competition, followed by VI Marketing & Branding of Oklahoma City, at 583.33, according to the anticipation to award document.

The campaign, initially funded with a $60 million influx the state received in the national tobacco settlement, was worth $600,000 a year when CJRW landed the first contract in 2001. It has held it ever since.