Advertising, Communications, Social Media, Digital Promotion, and Survey Research for the Spare the Air Program

The Bay Area Air District (“Air District”) seeks proposals from qualified and experienced contractors in the field of Advertising, Communications, Social Media and Digital Promotion, and Survey Research to assist the Air District with its Spare the Air program. The Spare the Air program encourages the public to make behavior changes that will have a beneficial impact and improve air quality and is one of the Air District’s most effective and widely recognized public outreach programs. Collaborating contractors must name a single, lead proposer that will submit on behalf of collaborating contractors. The Air District, at its sole discretion, may select more than one contractor to meet the requirements of this Request for Proposals (“RFP”).

The work described in this RFP is anticipated to begin July 1, 2027 and continue f or a three-to-five-year term through June 30, 2030 or June 30, 2032 . At the Air District’s discretion, the contract may begin as early as March 2027 to ensure a seamless transition of services . The contract will be partially funded using Transportation Funds for Clean Air (TFCA) funds and the Air District has allocated $2,700,000 per fiscal year, plus an additional one-time not-to-exceed amount of $75,000 for an In-Language Survey in the third year of the contract. The total maximum budget for the three-year term is $8,175,000. It’s important to note that the overall value of the contract contains significant hard costs, mainly advertising.

An estimated break-down of the budget allocation per fiscal year is shown in the tables below:

Table 1: Spare the Air Summer Program

Table 2: Spare the Air Winter Program

*The media buy is separated into summer advertising and winter advertising, and can range based on ad placement, priority communities, number of ads, and duration of ad.

The Air District is the government agency responsible for protecting air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Air District is tasked with regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties that surround San Francisco Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, southwestern Solano, and southern Sonoma counties. It is governed by a 24-member Board of Directors composed of locally elected officials from each of the nine counties. The Air District’s mission is to improve air quality to protect public health, reduce historical and current environmental inequities, and mitigate climate change and its impacts.

The Air District aims to achieve its mission through many strategic goals, including: reducing and eliminating health problems caused by air pollution, achieving and maintaining air quality standards, leading the Bay Area’s efforts to fight global climate change, creating high-quality regulatory programs, and applying environmental best practices in all operations. To do so, the Air District regulates air pollution emissions from stationary emission sources such as factories, refineries, and power plants, and from smaller facilities like gas stations and dry cleaners. The Air District ensures that such facilities comply with air pollution laws and regulations, provides incentives to replace older, higher-emitting vehicles and equipment with cleaner alternatives, and gives grants and provides outreach to encourage healthy clean air choices by businesses and consumers. The Air District implements these efforts with an equity focus, aiming to reduce air quality disparities and promote environmental justice by targeting local air pollution in overburdened communities.