The Advertising Council Inc.

The Advertising Council Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit organization headquartered in New York, develops and distributes large-scale public service advertising and social marketing campaigns for federal agencies, operating predominantly as a prime contractor (98% of recent awards) on a full-and-open, non-set-aside basis across civilian agencies. The vendor's federal footprint spans 177 awards with a combined potential value of $421.3 million; recent activity shows declining award frequency (eight awards in 2022 to two in 2026) offset by higher-value individual task orders, with $299.4 million obligated against the potential ceiling as of the snapshot date.

The Advertising Council's customer concentration centers on three dominant federal agencies that account for 77% of combined potential value. The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration leads by both count (23 awards) and dollar magnitude ($189.5 million combined potential value), with a portfolio anchored on traffic safety social norming campaigns: alcohol-impaired driving, drug-impaired driving, distracted driving, child passenger safety, and heatstroke prevention. Federal Emergency Management Agency awards total $95.5 million across 19 awards, split between FEMA's Support Services Section (13 awards, $66.1 million) and the agency's main contracting line (6 awards, $29.4 million), supporting the READY Campaign for emergency preparedness messaging. The Department of Veterans Affairs Strategic Acquisition Center Frederick holds four awards valued at $23.4 million for Veteran suicide-prevention campaigns under the Veterans Health Administration Office of Suicide Prevention, including a recent sole-source purchase order of $6.8 million awarded September 28, 2026, running through September 2029 for evidence-based mental health messaging to all Veterans. Smaller but recurring customers include the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Agriculture Forest Service, and the Department of the Army.

The vendor holds position on five major parent IDIQs. The NHTSA Indefinite Delivery Contract DTNH2212D00276 (ceiling $40.8 million, expiring September 29, 2027) supports the five traffic-safety task orders listed above, with actual invoicing of $1.1 million to $2.5 million per fiscal year and self-performed delivery. FEMA IDIQs HSFEHQ09D0982 (ceiling $27.9 million, seven task orders) and HSFE9014D0046 (seven task orders, $7.7 million combined value) structure preparedness campaign work. The Executive Office of the President Office of Administration awarded a single-award $3 million BPA (expiring September 2025) for general national media campaigns, with $500 thousand invoiced in FY2023. A Department of Defense IDIQ (MDA90382C0174) generates six task orders with unspecified combined value.

Capability delivery centers on campaign research, creative development, media placement, digital asset production, and performance evaluation. Representative work includes the NHTSA child car safety campaign ($11.4 million ceiling, invoiced $1.5 million in FY2023, $2.5 million in FY2024, $2.1 million in FY2025 across roughly 0.8–0.9 FTEs with median hourly rates running $1,194–$1,310/hr), the NHTSA heatstroke prevention campaign ($12.1 million ceiling, invoiced $1.8–$1.9 million annually at $900–$962/hr), and a 2024 FEMA Ready Campaign definitive contract of $1.5 million (terminated for convenience in February 2025). The vendor also holds a $400 thousand federal grant award from the Department of Agriculture Forest Service under the Cooperative Forestry Assistance program (CFDA 10.664) for the National Wildfire Prevention Campaign featuring Smokey Bear, running through February 2031.

The vendor performs substantially all work in-house; across SCI-reportable prime contracts, zero subcontractor hours appear in the dataset, and all named contract awards carry self-performance language. SCI-reported invoicing totaled $10.1 million in FY2023, $12.2 million in FY2024, and $11.4 million in FY2025, with government-paid hourly rates on federal service contracts ranging from a 10th percentile of $533.62/hr to a 90th percentile of $1,446.03/hr and a median of $879.13/hr. FTE trajectory shows 6.2 FTEs in FY2023, 7.0 FTEs in FY2024, and 5.4 FTEs in FY2025 on SCI-captured work. Six awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, carrying combined potential value of $41.2 million and representing recompete exposure primarily in the NHTSA traffic-safety portfolio. The vendor also acts as a sub-recipient on four federal grant awards, including a National Council For Behavioral Health project supporting the Start with Hope substance-use-disorder campaign (December 2024 sub-award, running through FY2025) and a World Wildlife Fund cooperative agreement on consumer food-waste reduction (November 2025 sub-award).