Project Background
In Ontario, the OEB regulates the province`s electricity and natural gas sectors. An important part of its mandate is to communicate with consumers and industry stakeholders to ensure that they are informed and have the opportunity to engage with the OEB regularly when it comes to energy matters that affect them.
OEB has already embarked on a journey to become a consumer-centric regulator with such initiatives as the industry performance scorecards, creation of a bill calculator on the website, community outreach and consumer feedback mechanisms, to name a few.
More recently, the organization is engaging in more frequent province wide communications and community outreach activities designed to better connect consumers with the OEB and share information about the OEB and what it does for consumers, and for industry. As these activities gain momentum and OEB continues its transformation, it will be important to gauge its impact on target audiences to evaluate and recalibrate its implementation plan. The OEB therefore seeks to further strengthen measurement of its activities by creating a more robust, evidence-based approach to evaluate how it is represented in all forms of media. The OEB also seeks to take it one step further by linking the data and analysis to all of its other evaluation mechanisms in order to leverage this knowledge to inform and improve future activity related to community and stakeholder relations and policy development.
Objectives
- Benchmark and measure the impact of the OEB’s media relations efforts both in terms of accuracy of reporting and share of voice on issues
- Benchmark and track public perceptions and awareness of the OEB brand positioning, as represented by the media, in its multiple roles as an independent regulator, consumer protection agency, setting and enforcing standards, and as an enabler for long-term integrity of the system
- Benchmark and track trends and themes on energy sector issues that are relevant to the OEB
- Benchmark and track the OEB’s reputation and brand drivers as represented by media
- Measure the value and nature of OEB involvement in media relations activity by issue
The term of the assignment is for two (2) years with an option to extend for two (2) additional one (1) year terms.
Full details are provided in the RFP document which is available only through MERX at www.merx.com or 1-800-964-6379, MERX reference number 0000084109.
