Credit: Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash
Queensland's Southern Downs Regional Council has opened a tender for its first full-service communications agency, AdNews can reveal.
The council, which has never engaged a full-service agency before, wants a strategic partner across corporate reputation, brand, creative, digital, media buying and crisis communications.
The tender follows an independent audit of council's in-house communications function which found the team was heavily "committed" but hampered by capacity pressures, ad hoc workflows, centralised approval processes and limited documented frameworks.
The mayor and chief executive validated the findings which triggered the pitch.
The winning agency will inherit five completed frameworks from the review. Firstly, a Communications Review Report, a Messaging Consistency Framework, a Tone of Voice Guide, a Language Guide and a Draft Baseline and Performance Framework.
Council wants the agency to build on this work rather than repeat it, and has ruled out a fresh audit at the outset.
Price carries just 10% of the evaluation score while understanding of council's operating environment, strategic and reputation capability and crisis and issues management each carry 20%.
Meanwhile, creative, digital and media capability carries 15%, matched by the proposed approach to reach, share of voice and engagement.
Council has not disclosed a budget, citing no comparable historical spend, and has instead proposed a tiered retainer and rate card model, with a monthly fee capped on hours and an hourly rate above the cap or after-hours.
The brief calls for seven named leads, spanning strategy, account management, issues and crisis, creative, digital, media planning and buying, and research.
Council wants routine requests acknowledged within a business day, urgent issues within two hours, and critical incidents within an hour.
Council flagged the lead-up to the 2028 local government and state elections as a factor shaping the brief, and wants a partner that can build reputation resilience while staying apolitical.
The scope excludes the council's tourism brand, Southern Downs and Granite Belt, which is managed separately.
A multi-agency panel.which has proven popular across government in recent years. is off the table, though consortium bids are welcome provided a single point of contact manages the contract.
Agencies outside Queensland are also eligible.
The contract will run for 22 months initially, with an option to extend for a further year and council expects to shortlist by August 21.
Tenders close on August 14.
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