Inactive

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) intends to make an award to iSpot.TV, Inc. 15831 Ne 8th St. Ste. 100 Bellevue, WA 98008-3916, on a sole source basis, under authority of FAR 6.302-1 for... The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) intends to make an award to iSpot.TV, Inc. 15831 Ne 8th St. Ste. 100 Bellevue, WA 98008-3916, on a sole source basis, under authority of FAR 6.302-1 for the Debt Relief Ad Monitoring Tool. One of the primary functions of the Bureau is to collect, research, monitor, and publish information relevant to the functioning of markets for consumer financial products and services to identify risks to consumers and the proper functioning of such markets (Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd Frank Act) Section 1021). The debt relief industry offers intermediary services to support consumers through the process of working out repayment solutions with creditors and/or improve consumers' financial health. Client volume for debt relief is driven primarily through marketing efforts. Thus, it's an area where industry actors can fairly easily enter if there is demand and pivot to focus on the trending debt problems that consumers are facing. To drive traffic, they use a variety of observable paid and unpaid media targeting consumers with unmanageable debt. In this respect, tracking of debt relief marketing can act as an “early warning system" of debt problems occurring in the marketplace across various market products. Automatically tracking these activities can improve the Markets Team's ability to provide data-driven advice to the Bureau about emerging areas of concern. Quantitative and qualitative monitoring of TV advertising provides particularly useful insight into debt relief activities due to the ability to observe ad copy and targeting strategies by players large enough to warrant the investment in this strategy. A critical component of this analysis is the ability to track new players providing debt relief services across a broad range of consumer financial products, including, but not limited to, mortgages, student loans, credit cards, and credit scores. The ability to spot new players quickly with clear insights into the creative copy supports the usefulness of these monitoring efforts in cross-bureau initiatives to root out predatory or abusive practices in this sector. Ispot.tv provide monitoring tools that support these efforts, allowing the Bureau to observe data on a daily basis, cut by product types rather than specific companies. Bureau staff analyzed media monitoring tools across marketing channels, using internet research. This resulted in identification of approximately thirty products available for media analysis. Through internal discussions, staff identified TV advertising as a key media channel to use as a data source. Staff conducted discussions with vender representatives to determine the products available and their suitability for the specific requirements of this project, and through that analysis determined that only one service provided the tools and services necessarily to meet research objectives. iSpot.TV provide monitoring tools that support these efforts, allowing the Bureau to observe data on a daily basis, with searches determined by product/service types, rather than specific company names. Market analysis showed that other TV ad monitoring tools require more specific inputs, such as providing company names of interest. This tool uniquely allows broad searches across market players will support the research objectives of quickly identifying new players and surge marketing efforts, as well as the ability to research changes in content of the creative copy. Further, iSpot.tv provides intuitive dashboards and alerts for data analysis, and updates its data on a significantly more frequent basis than other media monitoring tools. This is not a solicitation; however, all responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency, no later than August 13, 2020.