Procurement of Marketing & Branding Services for Accelerate Prosperity’s Portfolio Businesses

1. Background

Accelerate Prosperity (AP) is a joint initiative of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) in Central and South Asia. It aspires to work towards a society that is powered by innovative and successful young entrepreneurs. Through its services, AP extends tailored training, advice, and technical assistance to aspiring and existing entrepreneurs to help them launch or expand their innovative business ventures. It also extends tailored financing to startups and small growing businesses (SGBs) to help them unlock external investments by improving their bankability and investment readiness.

2. Project Overview

Start-up Pakistan is a project financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and implemented by Accelerate Prosperity. The initiative aims to scale up Accelerate Prosperity’s existing model of technical support and financing for businesses. It will expand into new geographies and across exciting sectors such as education, health, tourism, and green economy, prioritizing digitization and environmental sustainability.

3. Program Context

Beyond financing, Accelerate Prosperity (AP) provides post-investment technical assistance to its portfolio businesses to strengthen their operations, market presence, and growth potential. AP seeks to engage a qualified marketing and branding firm to deliver tailored technical assistance to selected portfolio businesses. Based on identified business needs, fourteen (14) portfolio companies require support in areas including branding, marketing, digital presence, and AI-enabled business solutions.

The selected firm will deliver a range of marketing, branding, digital, and AI automation services aligned with the specific requirements of each business. Services will be delivered in accordance with the scope and priorities defined by AP and are expected to produce practical, sustainable outputs and capabilities that businesses can continue to utilize beyond the engagement period. Through this engagement, AP aims to strengthen the visibility, market positioning, customer engagement, and operational effectiveness of its portfolio businesses, contributing to their growth, sustainability, and investment readiness.

4. About the Position

Accelerate Prosperity Pakistan seeks to engage a qualified Marketing Firm to deliver marketing, branding, digital presence, and AI-enabled business support services to selected portfolio businesses.

The firm should have demonstrated expertise in branding, creative services, digital marketing, website development, and AI tools and automation. It will be responsible for delivering the required services to each portfolio business in accordance with the scope and requirements defined by AP. The selected firm should have the capacity to provide a broad range of services, either through its in-house team or through specialist partners and sub-vendors. The firm will be responsible for coordinating service delivery, maintaining quality standards, and ensuring timely implementation across multiple businesses located in different regions of Pakistan.

5. Scope of Work

The selected firm will provide marketing, branding, digital marketing, website development, and AI automation services to AP's portfolio businesses. AP will share the specific support needs of each business at the start of the assignment. As service requirements will vary, the firm will be expected to deliver only the services required by each business.

a. Branding and Creative Services

• Develop or strengthen brand identities, including logos, color palettes, typography, and brand guidelines.
• Develop reusable visual content libraries and media assets.

b. Photography and Content Development

• Conduct product, service, location, and business photography.
• Develop reusable visual content libraries and media assets.
• Produce short-form videos and social media content where required.

c. Website Development

• Design and develop new websites or improve existing websites.
• Ensure websites are mobile-friendly, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines.
• Integrate AI-powered chatbots or virtual assistants where required.

d. AI Tools for Marketing and Business Automation

• Introduce AI-powered tools and workflows to support content creation, customer engagement, lead generation, and marketing efficiency.
• Provide basic training to enable businesses to effectively use AI tools for ongoing marketing activities.
• Train businesses on how to use and maintain the solutions provided.
• Recommend affordable and sustainable tools suitable for small businesses.

e. Social Media and Advertising

• Set up and optimize social media channels.
• Develop content calendars and social media content.
• Manage paid advertising campaigns on Meta, LinkedIn, Google, and other relevant platforms.
• Provide basic training and handover support so businesses can continue managing their channels independently.
• Set up and optimize Google Business Profiles.
• Develop strategies to improve online reach and customer engagement.

f. Packaging and Promotional Materials

• Design product packaging, labels, and marketing materials.
• Coordinate printing and production where required.
• Design and support installation of signage and visibility materials.

6. General Responsibilities

The selected firm will:

• Deliver all services professionally and in accordance with industry best practices.
• Assign qualified personnel to the assignment.
• Maintain regular communication with AP and participating businesses.
• Ensure timely delivery of agreed outputs.
• Maintain confidentiality of all information obtained during the assignment.
• Incorporate feedback from AP and businesses in a timely manner.
• Hand over all final files, source files, platform access credentials, and user guides to participating businesses at the end of the assignment.

7. Deliverables

Ensure timely submission of complete, accurate, and high-quality deliverables in accordance with the agreed assignment timelines, AP's quality standards, and prescribed formats. The following services are required across 14 portfolio businesses; not every business needs every service. Some services are needed by many businesses, others by only a few, and each business needs a different mix. Firms should give a fixed price for each service listed below.

The marketing firm shall quote a standard unit rate for each.

8. Qualifications and Experience

8.1. Qualification Requirements of Applicant Firm

The applicant firm should:

• Be legally registered and have at least three years of relevant & proven experience in branding, creative services, digital marketing, website development, and advertising.
• Demonstrate experience in implementing AI tools, automation systems, or chatbot solutions.
• Have the capacity to deliver services across multiple locations in Pakistan.
• Have the team size and operational capacity to serve up to fourteen (14) businesses concurrently, across multiple locations, within the engagement period.
• Preference will be given to firms with experience serving startups and SMEs. Please attach a portfolio of relevant work; live examples (websites, social media pages, campaigns) may be shared as QR codes in the proposal.

8.2. Qualification Requirements of Team of Applicant Firm

The proposed team should collectively cover all areas of expertise required under this assignment. The team should include:

• A project lead responsible for overall coordination, quality assurance and communication with AP, with at least three (3) years of relevant experience managing marketing or branding projects and coordinating teams.
• Branding and graphic design specialists.
• Photography and content creation specialists.
• Website developers.
• Digital marketing and social media specialists.
• AI and automation specialists.
• Other technical experts as required.
• All key team members should have relevant qualifications and demonstrated experience in their respective areas.

9. Contract Duration

The contract duration will be 4 months. It may be extended based on program needs, budget availability, and performance of the firm.

10. Location

The assignment will cover AP portfolio businesses located across Pakistan. The selected firm may be required to travel for activities such as photography, signage installation, business meetings, and training sessions.

The businesses are distributed as follows:

The selected firm may be required to travel for activities such as photography, signage installation, business meetings, and training sessions.

Please note that the service provider will be responsible for covering travel and miscellaneous expenses. The cost must be mentioned in the financial proposal.

11. Payment Terms

• Firm shall submit a financial quotation specifying fixed unit rates for each deliverable listed in Section 7. These rates shall remain fixed for the full duration of the engagement.
• The firm must mention the travel and miscellaneous expenses as well.

Payment shall be made in three tranches:

• 30%: upon completion and AP approval of the agreed services for the first 5 businesses.
• 40%: upon completion and AP approval of the agreed services for the next 5 businesses (10 in total).
• 30%: upon completion and AP approval of the agreed services for the remaining 4 businesses (14 in total), including the handover packs for all businesses and the final close-out report.
• All payments shall be subject to applicable taxes, deductions and withholding requirements under the prevailing laws of Pakistan.
• The payments will be subject to approval of deliverables by the reporting manager.
•  Payments will be made within thirty (30) days from the date of submission of a complete and accurate invoice along with approved deliverables.

12. Reporting Line

The marketing Firm shall report to the Assistant Manager Marketing at AP for coordination, assignment management and review of deliverables. Overall oversight and approval of assignments, deliverables and performance under the engagement shall rest with the Marketing team at AP.

13. Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on Quality and Cost-based Selection:

• Technical expertise and experience of the applicants, including portfolio of samples, team composition, AI and automation capability, and the services delivery proposal (70%).
• Financial competitiveness (30%).

14. Proposal Submission Requirements

The bids are to be evaluated on the following grounds, meeting the following criteria which are mandatory.

Applicants must ensure the submission of the complete set of required documents. Applications with missing documents will be considered incomplete and, therefore, ineligible for consideration by Accelerate Prosperity.

14.1 Mandatory Documents (suppliers for don’t submit the mandatory documents will be disqualified)

• The applicant firm must provide a certificate of company/firm registration with SECP/relevant regulatory authority and an active taxpayer status.
• The applicant firm is required to sign the RFP document along with annexes, and it should be submitted along with the proposal.

14.2. Technical Proposal

• The Applicant Firm must submit the company profile that outlines their experience in line with the qualification requirements defined in Section 8.1 of this document. Please attach a portfolio of relevant work; live examples (websites, social media pages, campaigns) may be shared as QR codes. Only the relevant work examples can be shared using QR code, which should be part of the technical proposal.
• Applicant Firm should provide complete profiles of the proposed team along with CVs, including educational qualifications, professional experience, and previous experience as defined in Section 8.2 of this document.
• The applicant firm must prepare at least a proposal, outlining the proposed methodology for the assignment, including the approach to delivering the confirmed services across fourteen businesses in multiple locations, the scheduling of on-site activities, and the approach to AI tools and automation.

14.3. Financial Proposal

• The Firm shall submit a financial quotation specifying fixed unit rates for each deliverable listed in Section 7. These rates shall remain fixed for the full duration of the engagement.
• The financial proposal should be submitted using the attached financial proposal format on the company letterhead with a valid signature and stamp.

15. Intellectual Property, Content Rights & Confidentiality

All materials, designs, files and content produced under this assignment including logos, brand assets, websites, photographs, videos and written content shall be the property of the respective portfolio business. Upon completion, the firm shall hand over all final and editable source files, along with any accounts and login credentials, and shall assign all rights in the deliverables to the business. The firm shall ensure that all deliverables, including any AI-generated content and any third-party materials (such as stock images, fonts or music), are properly licensed and cleared for the business's commercial use, and are free of any claim that would restrict that use. The firm shall keep all business information obtained during the assignment confidential. The firm may display the work in its own portfolio or credentials only with the prior consent of AP and the business concerned.