KOLKATA: The 35th National Games to be held in ‘God’s own country’ Kerala in January-February 2015, has three companies bidding for the media monitoring assignment. 

According to sources, these three companies include Mumbai-based Esha Media Research, Delhi based IMM - Perfect Relations and Datamation Consultants. The technical bids were opened on 10 July at Thiruvananthapuram.

“The broad objective of appointing a media monitoring agency is to accurately measure the feedback onthe quantum and nature of media coverage before and after the games for a total 10-month period,” said a Kolkata based media expert.

National Games is the premier Multi Discipline Sporting Event held in the country once in every two years and this 35th edition has been allocated to Kerala by Indian Olympic Association. The National Games secretariat is the nodal agency formed by the Government of Kerala for organising the games.

The Games will be hosted for 15 days in 30 venues located across seven districts of the state.

The media monitoring agency will “ensure the success of the publicity and sponsorship campaign by using the feedback to carry out effective communication to all stake-holders,” reads the tender for the bid.

Through the media monitoring initiative, it also intends to bring about improvements in the marketing and sponsorship strategies for this edition of the National Games.

As per the criteria stipulated in the tender, the bidder must have an average annual turnover of at least Rs 50 lakh from media monitoring engagements during the previous three financial years.

The bidder should also have handled at least three assignments of similar nature, scope and complexity, during the past five years.

None of the expected bidders were available for comment.