CTP Public Education Campaigns Support Services

The FDA Center for Tobacco Products awarded this Master IDIQ on September 20, 2012, to support public education campaigns reducing tobacco use, with ordering authority closing on September 19, 2017. This vehicle is inactive — ordering closed over eight years ago and the combined potential value of $351.7 million has been fully obligated across 11 task orders awarded between November 2012 and July 2015.

True North Communications Inc. dominates the vehicle, holding 6 of 11 task orders representing $351.3 million of the $351.7 million combined potential value — effectively capturing the entire program. Five other vendors won single task orders ranging from $7 thousand to $262 thousand, but these are administratively minor. All work funded FDA programs exclusively; customer concentration is complete.

Awarded task orders span three lines of effort: large-scale youth awareness campaigns targeting ages 12–17 and general market audiences (two orders totaling approximately $189 million), point-of-sale retailer education initiatives ($42 million), and research support ("Think Tank" analytical work, five orders under $300 thousand combined). Pricing on major campaigns ran Time and Materials; smaller research tasks were Firm Fixed Price. All 11 orders were competed on a full and open basis with no set-aside designations.

Task-order values clustered in two tiers: five major delivery orders ranging from $42 million to $115 million, each supporting multi-year campaigns, and six smaller orders of less than $300 thousand supporting analytical and advisory services. Performance period completions extended through 2020 for the largest campaigns. The vehicle's $390 million shared ceiling accommodated workload with modest margin, given $351.7 million obligated.

New business development on this vehicle is closed — all ordering authority expired in 2017, and True North's singular dominance leaves no competitive pathway for new entrants. The vehicle serves as a reference for FDA's public health campaign contracting model but has no active ordering window.

To reduce the public health burden of tobacco use in the U.S. and educate the public-especially young people-about the dangers of tobacco use, FDA's Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) is developing and implementing a number of public education campaigns. Evidence from controlled field experiments and population studies shows that paid media campaigns are a proven strategy in preventing and reducing population-level tobacco use and have contributed to significant declines in tobacco use over the past several decades.