Firm behind $5M ad campaign registered to do business in South Dakota two days before bid opened

Noem’s office says it didn’t tip off Ohio company leading Freedom Works Here marketing blitz

The out-of-state marketing company that won a contract for a $5 million workforce recruitment campaign registered to do business in South Dakota the same week the state put the work out for bid.

But no one in state government tipped off Ohio-based Go West Media — which has ties to numerous political allies of Gov. Kristi Noem — that it’d be soliciting a marketing firm for what came to be the “Freedom Works Here” campaign, according to Noem’s office.

“Nobody from the Governor’s Office or GOED notified the company of the RFP before it was posted,” Noem’s spokesman Ian Fury told The Dakota Scout Monday.

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