Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officials awarded an open-ended contract valued at $5.7 million to the firm that handled campaign advertising for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
The firm, known as GMMB, was paid $389 million by the Obama re-election campaign in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was more than any other vendor or consultant employed by the campaign.
GMMB partner Jim Margolis was a senior campaign adviser to Obama in 2008 and 2012. He also produced both of Obama’s inaugurations and directed the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Margolis “currently represents more Democratic senators than any other consultant in the nation, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,” according to GMMB’s website.
Frank Greer, the firm’s founder, was a senior adviser to President Clinton.
The CFPB contract is a “blanket purchase agreement” that allows the agency to add new projects to GMMB’s work without having to go through another bid solicitation or competitive selection process.
The award was made Aug. 15, 2013, but no GMMB-designed advertising campaigns have been made public to date.
A BPA is intended to simplify recurring federal purchases of “supplies and services, while leveraging ordering activities’ buying power by taking advantage of quantity discounts, saving administrative time, and reducing paperwork,” according to the General Services Administration.
CFPB published a 46-page “Request for Quote” on May 10, 2013, for the BPA. That was a Friday. Responses were due the following Tuesday, giving potential bidders only two business days to submit notice of their intent.
Samuel Gilford, a CFPB spokesman, told the Washington Examiner that “the initial award was competitively solicited among qualified firms” and “four proposals were received, including GMMB’s.”
No public notice of the award to GMMB was made by CFPB, although federal contract decisions are routinely made known through agency news releases and web site announcements.
Gilford claimed “an award announcement is not generally required for contract actions” like CFPB’s “blanket” award to GMMB.
The contract isn’t included in a listing on the GMMB website of the BPA’s it has won from the Department of Agriculture, Transportation Security Administration and Corporation for National and Community Service.
Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog, said the CFPB contract raised troubling questions.
“The short timeframe raises basic questions about the legitimacy of the award process, was this contract steered to the company,” Amey asked.
“Was the president involved? Probably not. But I’m sure there are a lot of people in the White House that know they’ve used GMMB before,” Amey said.
Gilford told the Examiner that GMMB’s work “will include providing market research and strategic planning services to the CFPB’s consumer education and engagement division.”
He said about one quarter of the $5.7 million funds have been spent to date. “No final advertising products have yet been produced” other than online search advertising, Gilford said.
Gilford would not specify a starting date for any of the campaigns for which GMMB is responsible.
Campaigns to be created by GMMB are intended to “educate and empower consumers to make better informed decisions,” according to the May 2013 solicitation.
The research part of the project was to include “focus groups, online panels, surveys, [and] quantitative advertising.”
CFPB said it was interested in “executing creative concepts across all appropriate media channels,” which included “television, radio, out-of-home, point of purchase, print, web and public events.”
About $2 million of the $5.7 million was obligated in agreements signed by CFPB with GMMB in 2013. That included, according to USAspending.gov, $950,00 for an “Owning a Home” product marketing strategy and $833,000 for “paid search marketing.”
Thus far in 2014, CFPB has signed about $3.6 million worth of contracts with GMMB under the BPA, according to USASpending.gov.
Those include $2.1 million for an unspecified “media buy,” $600,000 for a “Paying for College” campaign and an additional $250,000 for an unidentified “media campaign.”
