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CJRW, Team SI Officially Win AEDC Ad and PR Contracts

2 min read

The Arkansas Legislative Council gave final approval Friday morning for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission to award advertising, marketing and public relations contracts worth up to $2.4 million to Little Rock agencies CJRW and Team SI.

The commission, which works to lure businesses to locate and expand in the state, granted two $800,000 contracts to CJRW and one to Team SI, an affiliate of Mangan Holcomb Partners. CJRW’s contracts are for advertising and public relations, while Team SI will handle digital marketing.

“We’ve been awaiting this approval, and we’re extremely excited to get this going,” said Jeff Moore, the AEDC’s director of marketing and communications.

Moore was the force behind splitting a single advertising contract, which had been handled by Little Rock’s Stone Ward firm for more than two decades, into three separate contracts. The goal was to seek deeper experience in digital marketing and specific branding, Moore said.

“This has been a very tough process, but now we can move forward with being effective with taxpayer dollars, and bring more jobs to the state,” he said.

Moore noted that the $800,000 figure on each of the contracts was a “space holder,” and that the AEDC’s actual appropriated marketing and communications budget is $1.6 million. He is expecting to supplement that with federal funds from the Arkansas Energy Office, a division of the AEDC that promotes efficiency, clean technology and sustainable energy strategies.

The space holder amounts will give the AEDC flexibility to shift priorities like media costs and content development from one contract to another with the goal of getting the most out of the money, Moore said.

The commission chose the winning bids from nine submitted for the digital marketing contract, five submitted for the branding contract and seven tendered for the public relations work, AEDC spokesman Scott Hardin said.

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