Gov. Kristi Noem recruits welders to move to South Dakota in one of her office’s Freedom Works Here campaign ads. (Courtesy of Governor’s Office)
Recent testimony cast a harsh light on how the bid was awarded for the Freedom Works Here marketing campaign. It seems that awarding the bid for the project had more to do with political expediency than it did with talent. Where that talent was missing, the winning bidder reportedly got to steal an idea from one of the other bidders.
The Freedom Works Here campaign , with at least $6.5 million invested so far, features Gov. Kristi Noem in television and online commercials in the role of skilled workers that are needed in South Dakota. Noem and officials from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development claim Freedom Works Here is the most successful workforce development campaign the state has ever had. It’s just hard to know who to give credit to for that success.
At a hearing conducted by the Legislature’s Executive Board, former GOED Marketing Director Nate Welch said the fix was in to choose a politically connected company from Ohio to run the campaign. “It was pretty obvious that was who we would be selecting at the end of this,” Welch said, according to a South Dakota Searchlight story .