• by Kate Kaye , February 5, 2004

The Iowa caucuses weren't far off when DesMoinesRegister.com's VP of marketing Susan Patterson Plank began fielding frantic calls from political campaign staffers. One impassioned politico wanted to buy out a site section intended for three ads in order to shut out other candidates. Another hoped to run a month's worth of ads in four days.

Such feverish pre-primary activity prompted Patterson Plank to expect more from the frenzy. But only two primary candidates' campaigns made online ad buys on Iowa's DesMoinesRegister.com--John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich.

"It makes you wonder," she muses. "The political machine knows how to do direct mail and TV, but I'm not sure that they know how to do online."

Kerry's Flash ad, placed by political interactive agency Voter Interactive, ran from November through early December in the site's CareerBuilder section. Voter Interactive President Rand Ragusa is "very happy" with the 1.4% average clickthrough rate achieved with all media placements of the Kerry ad. Kucinich's static banner is still rotating throughout DesMoinesRegister.com's News section, and is garnering a clickthrough rate rivaling the top five best results of other ads run on the site.

In December, Al Kirts, new media sales manager for Iowa's Sioux City Journal, told MediaDailyNews: "It'll probably break loose after the first of the year." It didn't; no candidates ran ads on the site. "I was kind of surprised," says Kirts. Iowa's Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier came up empty-handed, too. And although she spoke with agencies before the Iowa caucuses, Sandy McKiney, national advertising manager for the paper, followed up--only to hear that campaign coffers had already been emptied by TV buys.

The Dean machine managed to crank out some cash for New Hampshire's Concord Monitor Online and Primary Monitor. An animated gif ad promoting Howard Dean for America can still be seen on the sister sites. "They called the day before the primary," reveals Peter Bakke, online manager at the Concord Monitor. "They wanted their ads in front of as many eyes as they could."

Manchester, New Hampshire's The Union Leader scored over $250,000 in print ad buys from most of the mainstream democratic candidates, and even perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. In contrast, according to national advertising manager Steve Krammes, the paper's Web presence took in less than $5,000 total for ads placed by the campaigns of Wesley Clark and John Donald Rigazio, a businessman who ran on the Republican ticket in New Hampshire's primary. For $40, The Union Leader's print advertisers can run an online reproduction of their print ads. But there were no takers among political advertisers on those, notes Krammes. All in all, he chalks up the lack of online buys to limited finances for anything but TV buys.

"I think it has to do with the agencies they hire," surmises The Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier's McKiney, concluding that "some focus more on TV and broadcast." McKiney hopes the Customized Newspaper Advertising, the sales arm of the Iowa Newspaper Association, will help ferret out agencies with Internet interest when national campaigns kick in. At the organization's recent quarterly meeting, online advertising was on the agenda, and plans for creating packages that feature Web placements as a "value-add" are in the works.

Concord Monitor Online's Bakke stays away from selling online spots as mere value-adds, concerned that it will diminish the worth of Web ads. "We are our own medium," he asserts. "We never just say we'll give you the online for free."

The Kerry camp appears to appreciate the value of the Internet. When the campaign was "looking for a cheap way to counter Dean's online successes," tells Voter Interactive's Ragusa, they found in Web ads a "cost-effective way to reach voters most likely negatively affected by the downturn of the economy." In addition to the ads placed on DesMoinesRegister.com, Voter Interactive placed Flash ads on six Iowa and New Hampshire-based employment- related sites. The Kerry campaign also sponsored issues of regionally targeted email newsletters sent by IowaJobNetwork.com and NewHampshireJobNetwork.com.

Even the candidate himself has referred to the communicative power of the Web. During a speech following this week's primaries, Kerry assured, "John kerry.com will be online every day during my presidency."