Health Promotion Board closes creative and digital pitch with no shortlists

Singapore Health Promotion Board's (HPB) creative and digital marketing services pre-tender qualification stage has closed with no applicants shortlisted, due to a change in project requirements, according to a statement by R3 Asia Pacific, HPB's pitch consultant.

HPB will put up a new pre-tender qualification notice in January 2024 to shortlist applicants for the selective tender process, it said. 

The revised project requirements will be included in the new notice and interested agencies will be able to refer to the GeBIZ portal from the second week of January 2024 for more details, it added.

Don't miss: Health Promotion Board calls for creative and digital pitch

This comes after HPB called for a creative and digital pitch in September last year to support its integrated marketing and communication projects. The tender was meant to be awarded under a retainer model for a period of three years with an option to extend for another three years, according to GeBIZ documents seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE at the time. 

At the time, the pitch was meant to be a two-stage tender comprising of a pre-tender qualification and a selective tender with the qualifying round being the first stage of the selective tendering process. Only four shortlisted agencies that qualified at the pre-tender qualification stage were meant to be invited to participate in the selective tender stage as tenderers, it said in September. 

A selective tender was meant to be subsequently called for full-fledged creative and digital agency services via a retainer model to conceptualise, plan and implement integrated marketing and communication projects for HPB’s health initiatives for a period of three years from 1 April 2024 until 31 March 2027 with the option to extend for another three years till 31 March 2030. 

The selective tender, which has now closed, was meant to cover strategic marketing services, creative production, social media, behavioural insights and MarTech services and more details were provided at a pre-tender qualification briefing on 14 September. 

This comes shortly after HPB appointed global marketing consultant R3 Asia Pacific to conceptualise, plan and implement integrated marketing and communication campaigns for HPB's various health initiatives in May last year. 

According to GeBiz tender documents seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE at the time, R3 Asia Pacific was required to evaluate the effectiveness of HPB's existing marketing agency’s contracts, conduct a needs analysis of key stakeholders and provide industry insights while supporting HPB in structuring and implementing the best practices in agency models, agency performance management, remuneration models and team structures to achieve operational efficiencies and cost-effectiveness.

It was also required to assist HPB in the drafting of the detailed tender specifications, price schedule and evaluation criteria as well as the evaluation of the tender proposals. They will offer industry insights and benchmarks while also facilitating the onboarding of the appointed marketing agency or agencies and ensure a smooth transition.

The contract is valid for a period of 12 months from the date of the invitation to quote (ITA) award and a detailed execution timeline based on the assumption that the tender process, including the on-boarding of the appointed agency or agencies, is expected to be completed latest by March 2024, according to documents provided when HPB called for the pitch in March 2023.

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