Video, Mobile Charge Up Des Moines Media

Throw away those stale stereotypes about the Midwest being sleepy and agricultural when you look at Des Moines, Iowa. It is not only the capital of the Hawkeye State, it’s a vibrant media market that’s expected to see robust local online advertising growth this year.

Des Moines-Ames, Iowa, is one of three DMAs that research and consulting firm Borrell Associates has projected will have the highest growth rate for local online ad revenue in 2011.

Its local digital advertising is expected to rise 22%, from $67.9 million to $83.1 million, from last year to this year, according to Borrell vice president of research Larry Shaw.

From 2010 to 2015, Des Moines’ online ad spending will increase a sizable 95%, to $130.6 million, according to Borrell estimates.

While Des Moines hasn’t seen some of the leaps in online growth as larger markets during the past few years, in 2011 it is starting to play catch-up. In addition to seeing strong overall online ad increases this year, the market is also racking up large gains in ad spending on streaming video, more than 40%.

The Des Moines Register and local TV stations are also launching smartphone apps to help satisfy the state’s passion for college and high school sports. Those sites are also dabbling in geo-based apps.

Des Moines, the No. 73 media market, is chock-full of media outlets. It has numerous television and radio stations, including a bevy owned by Clear Channel Communications, according to Shaw. The city’s largest daily, The Des Moines Register, is owned by newspaper giant Gannett Co. And the national magazine empire Meredith Corp. -- owner of publications such as Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies’ Home Journal and Family Circle -- is headquartered in town.

“You’ve got a market with a significant Web presence for that area of the country, right in the heart of the Midwest,” Shaw said. “You tend to draw a lot of traffic.”

The Register’s Web site, www.DesMoinesRegister.com, is one of the market’s largest in terms of traffic. The site, which turns 14 years old in March, averaged 1.4 million unique visitors a month last year, a 10% increase from 2009 and a 65% gain from five years ago, according to Karen Patterson Plank, vice president of marketing for Des Moines Register Media. It averages 17.5 million page views a month. 

“It’s a significant site,” Plank said. “We have incredible traffic and we continue to grow on the advertising revenue side.”

According to Compete.com, in January DesMoinesRegister.com was the top-ranked local media site in terms of unique visitors. It was followed by www.kcii.com, the site for Hearst Television’s CBS affiliate. The Tribune and Local TV LLC-owned NBC affiliate’s www.whotv.com was next. Citadel Communications ABC affiliate’s site, www.woi-tv.com and Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned Fox affiliate www.kdsm17.com, rounded out the top five.

Des Moines is distinct, in terms of local ad revenue, because it has one of the higher growth rates, 43%, in terms of streaming video, Shaw said. From 2010 to 2011, streaming video advertising will increase from $6.9 million to $10 million.

“Streaming video is really popular,” Shaw said. “With the Web, even The Des Moines Register if you look at their site, they’ve got a lot of links to video. It’s really blurred the medium in terms of the traditional newspaper site, print and text only, and television sites do links to video and get into a little print.”

DesMoinesRegister.com last fall forged a digital partnership with Yahoo.com that allows advertisers to make buys with the newspaper, Yahoo! or a combination of the two, according to Plank.

“When we look at our numbers for DesMoinesRegister.com and Yahoo, and we look at our media market, we reach 75% of local Internet users with those two combined,” she said. “From an advertiser point of view, we have incredible reach.”

DesMoinesRegister.com can do behavioral targeting, as well as targeting based location and gender, according to Plank.

“We’re pretty sophisticated on the advertising side,” she said. “We also can provide search-engine marketing. So we have a pretty broad array of tools in our digital toolkit.”

And DesMoinesRegister.com’s advertising is not sold as a free “added-value” for advertisers buying print ads in the newspaper.

“We’re real believers in making sure that when we’re selling digital we’re selling digital,” Plank said. “It’s not as if people don’t buy a combination, but there’s no what we would call packaged buys. We want to make sure that anybody who is making a digital purchase knows they are buying digital purposely.”

KDSM.com has been trying some new ad approaches.

“We sell the standard stuff, banners, etc., but have also set up shop with a half-off gift certificate site called ‘Hey It's Half Off!,’ where consumers can purchase gift certificates from local retailers, entertainment venues and restaurants,” said Mike Wilson, KDSM’s general manager.