Treasurer defends marketing contract

State Treasurer Dan Schwartz and his chief of staff Grant Hewitt Tuesday defended their selection of a marketing company saying the Reno-based business didn’t get inside information to help it win the contract.

“I’m very confident we followed the rules and I don’t think they knew any information no one else had,” said Hewitt.

The issue was raised because of an email Amplify Relations President Bryan Bedera sent to his top staff in March.

That email begins: “As most of you know we have been asked to bid the Nevada Treasurer’s College Saving Program marketing campaign. We have been (sic) a 2-week jump and a huge information advantage on our competitors. This is our project to lose.”

After an in-house RFP evaluation, Amplify won the one-year, $600,000 contract to handle marketing for the Pre-paid College Tuition, College Kick Start, 529 College Savings and Millennium Scholarship programs.

Hewitt said the tone of the email is “definitely concerning,” but “I don’t believe (Bedera) was given any advantage.”

Schwartz pointed out Amplify was already one of his contractors, handling social media for the office.

Hewitt added all the items listed in what Bedera described as the Treasurer’s “wish list” were things Amplify would almost certainly have known from conversations dealing with the social media contract.

“All these things were up front and we put them in the RFP,” he said.

That list includes unifying the marketing for those programs under one brand, TV campaigns to students, a Hispanic marketing effort, T-shirts, direct mail to teachers and to students and rural outreach among others.

“To my knowledge, these were not secret to anybody,” Schwartz said.

Hewitt said all bidders were given the opportunity to make a presentation to the RFP review panel and Amplify’s presentation was the best.

Bedera said as far as he knows, the company “had the same information as the other contractors,” and didn’t have a “leg up” on the competition.

Any advantage Amplify had, he said, was a result of having worked with the Treasurer’s Office on the original social media contract.

“We knew the broad ideas of what the treasurer wanted,” he said.

Schwartz said he would strongly defend the selection of Amplify based on the quality of work it has produced since the contract was awarded in July. In fact, he said, he’s planning to add another $200,000 to the contract total in the near future.

Since July, the firm has billed the state a total of $286,000 in addition to the $15,490 billed in June under the original social media contract.