Despite record sales last fiscal year, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board is having an existential crisis. Its stores are interchangeably referred to as state stores, liquor stores and wine and spirits shops. Some outlets are big and bright with plush window displays, others are urban, undersized and give the effect of shopping in a demilitarized zone.

That's why the board wants to pay somebody to create an "enduring, iconic brand identity and image of the PLCB as a world-class retailer of wine and spirits," and undertake a sweeping overhaul of the stores themselves, redrawing everything from exterior facades to interior foot-traffic maps to merchandise layouts. The effort is to coincide with the PLCB's 75th anniversary (no word on whether the winning bidder will be expected to create a superfluous mascot with a silly name).

The state's liquor sales have been going up and up, more than 30 percent over the last five years, reflecting the national trend favoring wine and premium spirits over beer. But the PLCB believes there is room for improvement -- and much of that improvement lies in streamlining the image of the state store.

What that image will be, though, is up to the winning bidder. "There is," the PLCB said, "widespread misconception and a lack of awareness" about recent improvements within the 630-outlet state store system, as well as "multiple logos, inconsistent color schemes and sometimes conflicting retail merchandising strategies," which confuse, rather than attract, customers.

The two-year contract, with the possibility of three, one-year extensions, will be a big one. But the PLCB has given little guidance as to exactly how extensive, or expensive, the effort should be. Often, requests-for-proposals (RFPs) issued by the state include a bidding range, an expectation of what the agency hopes to pay for the work. This RFP included no such estimate, and at a Sept. 13 meeting, where potential bidders were invited to ask questions about the project, the PLCB deflected several queries that fished around the cost issue.

One person who attended the meeting said there was "frustration" in the audience, because the RFP wasn't specific enough. A lot of people "seemed to be there because they genuinely wanted to understand what the scope of the project was, and they weren't getting those answers," he said.

In attendance at the pre-proposal conference were public relations heavyweights from around the state and country: the Lehigh Valley's Stiegler Wells Brunswick & Roth, Lancaster's North Star Marketing, Pittsburgh's Blattner Brunner, New York-based Euro RSCG and Redscout, Harrisburg's Neiman Group, Gyro Worldwide of Philadelphia, and Harrisburg's Pavone, which currently handles the PLCB's public relations.

Several of those firms are expected to bid on the project, which could be worth $5 million, though, with the RFP being as sprawling as it is, nobody seems to be quite sure what the PLCB is expecting to pay, or how much of the winning firm's recommendations will be implemented over the life of the contract. The bids are to be opened on Oct. 1.

The PLCB took in $1.69 billion in sales in the 2006-07 fiscal year, it reported last month.