More FY26 Federal Marketing Awards Are Now Public
Last week, as FY26 came to a close, we shared a first look at the federal marketing and communications awards coming through at year-end.
We also said it wasn’t the final tally. It definitely wasn’t.
In the days since, a number of additional awards have become public — including several of the larger competitions we had been tracking throughout the year.
Here’s what we’ve seen:
Ketchum secured a $151M CDC contract for the National Tobacco Education Campaign, taking the account from longtime incumbent PlowShare Group
Banyan Communications secured a $55M SAMHSA contract for communications, marketing and advertising supporting awareness, understanding and utilization of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Banyan also received two CDC awards: $2.6M for Health Communications Services and $1.7M for Communications Support Services.
Red Carrot secured the $50M CBP Strategic Marketing BPA, beating out three other bidders and taking the account from incumbent Elevation. This joins the $24M TSA Talent Acquisition Marketing Services contract and $4.2M HHS Administration for Children and Families Adolescent Development Products campaign we reported previously.
Fors Marsh Group secured a $25M FDA Center for Tobacco Products contract for Regulatory Dissemination and Communication Services (RDCS), unseating longtime incumbent IQ Solutions
LMD Agency successfully defended its $19M CISA External Affairs communications contract
ICF Next secured a $12M CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity contract for communications, marketing and strategic planning and a $2.2M CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion award supporting prostate cancer awareness
Weber Shandwick secured a $5.7M CDC contract for communications products and audience testing
FedWriters secured a $1.55M USDA Rural Development contract for marketing and communications campaign support, beating out four other bidders
Elevation secured an approximately $840K DHS contract supporting Office of Homeland Security Statistics core report services
Crosby Montage Partners secured a $520K USDA communications contract supporting the U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan, along with a separate USDA award supporting Agriculture Quarantine Inspection program outreach
These join the year-end wins we previously reported from Arrow ARC, The District Communications Group, Blackberg Group, Vivo360, Aptive Resources, Marketing for Change, IQ Solutions, HCN Global, TechPride-JPI JV and others.
A couple of things stand out.
Public health communications had a significant finish to FY26. The latest results add major awards across CDC, FDA, and SAMHSA to an already active list of year-end health communications work. The scope is broad, too — national public education campaigns, behavior change, health marketing, strategic communications, research, digital engagement and audience outreach.
And the vehicle story continues. We called out GSA MAS in our last email because of how frequently it appeared across the year-end awards. The additional results continue to reinforce the importance of existing contract vehicles as agencies procure marketing and communications services. For firms looking ahead to FY27, being positioned on the right vehicles — or having partners who are — remains increasingly important.
And we're still not at the final tally.
Even with considerably more of the FY26 award picture now public, there are still major competitions we're watching.
Navy Recruiting Marketing & Advertising, currently held by WPP’s VML, remains one of the largest unresolved marketing competitions.
Secret Service National Recruitment Advertising also remains in corrective action, with the agency rescoring several proposals following the protests that came after its initial award.
Congratulations to all of the teams starting FY27 with some momentum.