The Colorado Tourism Office board has approved potentially three-year contracts for the state’s tourism promotion campaign, although a formal announcement will not come for weeks.
The board — which is still notifying the winning and losing firms — adopted the recommendations of the office’s selection committees.
Denver’s KarshHagan won the advertising contract, and Denver’s Miles Weaver will handle print and interactive publishing. New York’s MMG Mardiks won the state’s public relations contract. MMG Mardiks is a division of Missouri-based MMG Worldwide, which has handled the Colorado Tourism Office’s marketing, public relations, advertising and interactive work since 2006.
This is the first time the office split the state’s advertising, interactive media and public relations contracts among different firms.
A spokesman with the Colorado Tourism Office declined to comment.
Miles Weaver, formally the Weaver Multimedia Group, has worked with the Colorado Tourism Office since 2005, publishing the state’s vacation guide. This is the first time the company will handle the state’s website, , as well as its interactive, mobile and e-mail marketing efforts.
Joe Bullard, who published the state’s vacation guide for several years in the early 2000s, put together a team to bid on the publishing contract. He said Thursday that the Colorado Tourism Office declined to share information including the number of advertisers for the state’s vacation website or the amount of postage spent on mailings last year. Bullard said the office asked him to file formal open-records requests for information. That made it difficult to formulate a budget for his proposal.
“The lack of transparency was stunning. I don’t know how anyone could bid on the (Official State Vacation Guide) contract and come up with any kind of budget that was accurate,” he said.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
