UC Law SF Hiring Digital Marketing Agency for HPL Program With $175K–$225K Budget
At a Glance Buyer: University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (UC Law SF) Industry: Higher education (law school/graduate program marketing) Location/markets: San Francisco, California; national reach implied (program visibility and reputation) Primary scope: Digital marketing strategy, execution, and optimization for the Master of Health Policy & Law (HPL) program Key deliverables/channels: Multi-channel paid campaigns (Google, Bing, Meta/Instagram/Faceb… Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
Office of the Governor of Texas Hiring Tourism PR + Influencer Marketing Across Asia Region
At a Glance Buyer: Office of the Governor of Texas (Travel Texas program) Industry: Tourism/destination marketing (public sector) Location/markets: Asia Service Region (primary: India, Taiwan; secondary: Japan, Korea; other markets as directed) Primary scope: Tourism public relations & marketing services (PR-led, with social and promotions) Key deliverables/channels: Media relations + pitching, press releases/kits, influencers, social strategy/content, consumer promotio… Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
SUNY Fredonia Digital Marketing Partner for $250K Annual Paid Media and Creative Production
At a Glance Buyer: State University of New York at Fredonia (SUNY Fredonia) Industry: Higher education (public university) Location/markets: Fredonia, New York; campaign markets not specified Primary scope: Digital advertising strategy, creative development, and media placement/campaign management Key deliverables/channels: Omnichannel media plan; paid search/social/video/programmatic; ad creative (static/video/vertical); GA4 + conversion tracking; real-time dashboard; month… Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
Tarleton State University Wants A Five-Year Sponsorship and Digital Advertising Revenue Partner
At a Glance Buyer: Tarleton State University Industry: Higher education (public university) + NCAA Division I athletics Location/markets: Stephenville, TX; plus Fort Worth, Waco, Bryan, and online audiences Primary scope: Manage campus sponsorships/digital advertising + exclusive athletics & rodeo multimedia rights Key deliverables/channels: Sponsorship sales + activation; TV/radio; in-venue and game-day assets; social/digital; digital signage; guest Wi-Fi/5G; reporting;… Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
Pace Seeks Marketing AOR for Creative + Media Buying and Transit Campaigns
At a Glance Buyer: Pace, The Suburban Bus Division of the Regional Transportation Authority Industry: Public transit/transportation (bus + paratransit) Location/markets: Northeastern Illinois Primary scope: Marketing and advertising services (AOR) Key deliverables/channels: Creative + media strategy; ability to meet regular deadlines + emergency requirements; specialized capabilities (digital, social, events, PR, multilingual writing) Budget: ~$4M/year anticipated advertising budget Contract type/term: Not specified Key dates: Pre-bid meeting: Feb 6, 2026, 10:00 AM CT; questions due: Feb 13, 2026, 2:00 PM CT; proposal deadline: Mar 13, 2026, 2:00 PM CT Eligibility/must-haves: Must register in Pace iSupplier Portal; submit signed AI certification; provide public-sector-relevant case histories (at least two) Why This Could Be Interesting Pace, the Suburban Bus Division of the Regional Transportation Authority, is hiring a full-service advertising agency of record for marketing and advertising services. This RFP reads like a true “do-the-work” account: you’re expected to propose creative strategies and marketing activities that show an understanding of Pace’s organizational strategies, then execute against deadlines Pace sets—sometimes on an emergency basis. What makes it notable is the breadth of capabilities Pace wants to see in one partner: digital marketing, social media, event execution, public relations, and in-house writing in languages other than English with culturally appropriate creative. If you’ve built an integrated shop that can move from strategy to production without handoffs, this is the kind of scope that can stay busy. Best suited for agencies with integrated creative + media capabilities, public-sector experience, and proof you can handle formal process and scrutiny (with relevant case histories). Proposal deadline: March 13, 2026, at 2:00 PM CT. Download the full RFP here.
Meta’s Incrementality Push Creates New Measurement Partnership Openings
At a Glance Interviewee: Alex Schultz, CMO & VP Analytics Company: Meta Location: Menlo Park, California Industry: Consumer technology and advertising Company Notes: Ads across a “Family of Apps,” plus longer-horizon bets like Reality Labs Best-Fit Agencies: measurement and experimentation, creative production at scale, lifecycle and growth, brand and trust communications, marketing ops and automation Source: CMO Confidential Podcast The Big Picture Meta … Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
Snap’s AR-First Playbook Signals New Creative Tech Demand
At a Glance Interviewee: Grace Kao, Chief Marketing Officer Company: Snap Inc. Website: https://www.snap.com/ Industry: Consumer camera + messaging platform with digital advertising and AR tooling Company Notes: Snap is the parent company of Snapchat, with an ad-led model and a growing Snapchat+ subscription revenue stream Best-Fit Agencies: Brand strategy, performance media, creator partnerships, AR/creative tech studios, B2B platform marketing, measurement, and a… Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
CMO Moves – Week of February 2, 2026
Highlights Nakul Goyal named CMO at CARFAX CARFAX is a vehicle history report company that also runs an automotive marketplace. Goyal was promoted after more than nine years as VP of Growth. He says his focus has been scaling consumer reach through product-led growth and performance marketing, and he’ll now lead the broader marketing organization to drive growth for both dealers and consumers. Agency lens: Expect a tight blend of performance marketing and product-le… Get Unlimited NextBigWin Access Subscribe to become a NextBigWin Pro member and get access to all our exclusive content. Turn access and intelligence into your next big client win. Already a member? Login Subscribe to NextBigWin Pro
Chris Foley Pilsner’s Journey From Agency Life to University Leadership
Executive: Chris Foley Pilsner, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer Company: Oakland University Industry: Public research university; higher education Company Snapshot: Mid-sized public research institution serving roughly 16,000 students with a strong regional, experiential focus. Format: CMO Journeys Interview In This Article Why It Matters Their Path, in Short Big Themes From the Conversation How They Choose the Right Agency Partners What Stood Out The Inside Scoop Why It Matters Chris Foley Pilsner is Oakland University’s first Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, and her path to the role runs straight through the agency world. She grew up inside creativity and client service, then moved into higher education, where the stakes are families, futures, and entire communities. Her story shows how classic agency training, data fluency, and a deep belief in education can work together. For agencies, she is both a former insider and a current buyer — someone who knows what great partnership feels like on both sides of the table. Their Path, in Short Chris grew up just outside Manhattan on Long Island, the daughter of two New York City public school educators. Education was always the family conversation. Her parents ended their careers as principals and superintendents, helping other leaders succeed. She knew she was not meant to be a classroom teacher, but the value of education was wired in early. At Villanova University, she studied English, women’s studies, and political science. She was drawn to the intersection of image and power — fascinated by moments like the Kennedy–Nixon debate and how perception shaped outcomes. She graduated during a recession, knowing only that she loved to write and loved figuring out how people tick. That curiosity led her into advertising, first as a secretary to a senior account person. Someone took a gamble on her, and that is how she “stumbled” into the industry. She became an account person at big agencies, working on consumer packaged goods, a bit of luxury, and pharmaceuticals. She learned how to sell products where you cannot always say the direct benefit, and she worked with multinational corporations. A transfer to London broadened her view of how business works and how to build disciplined client relationships — understanding the business situation, defining what needs to be done, and then delivering. Life moved her next to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she joined a small regional agency just as social media was becoming mainstream. It was a different scale but another rich learning experience. A later move to Western Massachusetts shifted the picture again; there were few agencies there, and the region was rural. She began consulting and, through her husband’s connections at the University of Massachusetts, got a first look at higher education as a marketer. That consulting work became her on-ramp into a new industry. In higher ed, she discovered a world that felt both familiar and very different. Her agency training served her well, but she also saw how immature the sector could be in marketing and communications. She had to explain why marketing mattered and why people and budgets for it were not a luxury. At UMass’s Isenberg School of Management, she worked for a dean who deeply valued branding. With his support, she hired a marketing consultancy to run the school’s first brand study and brought in its first ad agency — critical inflection points that gave her data, not just anecdotes, about the brand. That experience led to a series of leadership roles in higher ed marketing and communications. Over time, she realized how much she enjoyed not just storytelling but also CRM, digital transformation, and data. Eventually, Oakland University asked her to become its first Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, charged with unifying brand, marketing, and communications for a regional public research university with big ambitions. Big Themes From the Conversation One theme that runs through Chris’s story is a love of what makes people tick. In agencies, she gravitated toward strategy and consumer insights, not just the flashy creative. She loved pairing classic CPG discipline with harder categories like spirits and pharma, where you must tell a story without saying everything outright. That same curiosity now applies to prospective students, parents, faculty, and alumni — understanding what they care about and how to talk to each of them clearly. Another theme is how deeply she believes in the power of education. Coming from a family of educators, she jokes that she was never going to be a teacher, but she never lost the sense that education is essential. She talks about learning to sell things the world may not truly need, like another toothpaste, and then contrasts that with education, which she sees as a partial solution to many of society’s problems. That belief gives her work in higher ed a mission-driven energy. Data is a third throughline. Early in higher ed, she realized they had almost no hard data about their brand — only stories and perceptions. So she brought in a firm to conduct a brand study and used that as a baseline. Later, working in CRM and digital transformation, she came to see data as “everything.” She laughs that if you had told her early in her career that she would geek out on spreadsheets and first-party data, she would have laughed. Looking back, she wishes she had taken that Excel course sooner. She also thinks about brand as the end-to-end experience, not just a tagline. In her view, higher ed asks people to make a huge, complex, multi-year decision. No two students will have the same experience, yet universities still have to boil it down into a short, clear idea and then build a journey around it. For Chris, that means mapping the customer journey, simplifying the story without flattening it, and recognizing that branding includes customer service, advising, and every interaction — because “the brand is the experience.” Finally, there is a quiet but firm commitment to sustainability and self-care. Chris loves her job and throws herself into it, but she is