The University of Central Arkansas has selected Little Rock’s Eric Rob & Isaac to provide marketing and advertising services for the university.
The decision comes about a month after UCA reopened its contract with CJRW of Little Rock, which held the account since 2009, and requested bids from other agencies. Albright Ideas, Cranford Co. and Martin-Wilbourn Partners of Little Rock also responded to the request for proposals.
In a letter dated April 21, UCA’s director of purchasing, Cassandra McCuien-Smith, wrote to ERI that it had been selected to perform the services. No explanation or scoring was provided in the letter. McCuien-Smith also noted that any decision would require approval from the board of trustees and the Arkansas Legislative Council.
The deadline to submit a contract for review is May 6.
ERI declined to comment.
Richard McKeown, senior vice president and chief public relations officer at CJRW, said in a statement that “We’re very proud of the work we’ve done for UCA and of the consistent and impressive enrollment increases throughout the period in which we served as UCA’s marketing partner. Certainly we respect their decision and look forward to opportunities to further apply our expertise in the higher education arena.”
Christina Madsen, associate vice president for communications, public relations and marketing at UCA, told Arkansas Business earlier this month that the university was required to open the marketing contract up for bids next year and “we thought it’d be much smarter to start it now and not get interrupted a year from now if [the agency] did change.”
“We have so many new people here, and we’re ready to just really take UCA to the next level,” Madsen said. “Whether that means a new look, a new brand, new ideas, we wouldn’t want to start something now and then have to get a new agency a year from now. We wanted to be sure it was streamlined and just get ready to go big.”
Arkansas Business reported in 2009 that the contract was budgeted for $753,000 through the end of fiscal 2009 and would be $800,000 per year after that. UCA actually paid between $586,698 and $778,339 each year since fiscal 2010 and $604,136 in fiscal 2015.
Sign up for Daily E-news
