Critical Mention Earned Media Suite

This notice announces the intent by the U.S. Army Medical Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA), 820 Chandler St, Fort Detrick, Maryland, 21702, to award a sole source contract to Critical Mention, Inc. under the statutory authority 13.501(a). This contract is for the purchase of Critical Mention, Earned Media Suite for use at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM). The U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM), is requesting the license for Critical Mention's Earned Media Suite, which provides users with real-time TV, radio, online news, social media, podcast and licensed content monitoring, as well as an extensive Media Contact Database, which focuses on continuously improving the way you can track, share, analyze and grow media coverage. USARIEM PAO will use the information generated to monitor USARIEM mentions in the media, assess the tone of the conversations and evaluate its marketing value. This information tells us who is talking about our programs, when, where and why, giving us the opportunity to reach out to the media and journalists talking about us to amplify the USARIEM message, expand our reach to the USARIEM audience through organic influencers. This data also provides us with the tool to find, evaluate and give us a better opportunity correct inaccurate and/or negative information. Critical Mention crawls the web for mentions in real time, across multiple search engines and social media platforms. It is specifically a media mentions search engine, so it weeds out all the other noise that traditional search engines pick up, to include sponsored searches and advertisements. The service provides real-time and instant analytics of the data found and allows for custom data displays in unlimited amounts of reports. The analytics are impact-driven rather than vanity-driven. This service also crawls social media with the same drive and purpose with auto-updating. It also has licenses to the content behind most firewalls to pull up stories that would generally be hidden behind paid subscriptions or memberships. It also has a journalist directory with current and active journalist with the media organizations to build distro lists. Critical Mention offers free training with a dedicated account manager with 24/7 support with a live rep. There are numerous search and analytic companies available, however most are tailored to specific niches or do not include all the before mentioned capabilities. There are organizations that are Social Media-specific, or media-specific, but do not include a journalist database, nor do they include some of the analytic tools that measure and assess impact. Meltwater News is a common competitor, but they are not as user friendly, nor do they offer all the tools needed in one package. Critical Mention is the only tool that provides real-time TV a few minutes after airing, with the ability to download the clip itself, while other tools have to use 3rd party providers. Critical mention is the only tool that combines TV, Radio, Print, Online News, and Social Media into one search. Critical Mention is the only tool that provides unlimited searches, reports, and cloud storage. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) for this requirement is 511210 and the size standard is $41,500.00. This announcement fulfills the synopsis requirements under FAR 5.102(a)(6) and 5.203(a). USAMRAA intends to award a contract no sooner than 15 days after publishing this synopsis. This Special Request for Information is not a request for competitive quotes. Information received in response to this notice will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether a competitive procurement is in the best interest of the Government. If no written responses are received by the expiration date listed in this notice, which reflects at least fifteen (15) days after the publication of this notice, the award will be issued as sole source. All questions and responses concerning this notice shall be emailed to Mr. Christopher L. Cook at christopher.l.cook68.civ@mail.mil.