Women- & minority-owned ads awards

      The federal government is buying more advertising services from women-owned, disadvantaged and minority-owned firms, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office.

      The report examined the government’s advertising contracts with small disadvantaged firms as well as with large and small firms owned by women and minorities.

      Combined, those companies won $147 million in federal advertising contracts in 2017, up from $75 million in 2013. The percentage increased to 16% of all government ad spending in 2017, up from 9% in 2013.

      The GAO estimated spending in each category, noting that some ad dollars were counted more than once, such as when a disadvantaged firm also was women-owned.

      The large and small women-owned companies got the largest boost during the time period, with their advertising contracts nearly doubling from $61 million to $117 million.

      Small disadvantaged firms’ ad contracts got a 61% hike, from $44 million to $71 million.

      Large and small minority-owned firms experienced an increase as well. Ad spending to those companies climbed to $62 million, from $41 million, which was a 51% increase.

      More than half of the government’s ad spending to minority-owned companies during the period went to Hispanic-American-owned firms.

      The ads were for public education, customer service, recruitment and other goals. For the groups studied, the Defense, Homeland Security and Health & Human Services departments spent the most ad dollars. Percentagewise, NASA spent 98% of its ad dollars on the groups studied.

More information: GAO report: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-554

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Women- & minority-owned ads awards

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