Midwest Wine Press

Iowa Tourism Running Wine Ads in Chicago, KC and Mnpls.

by · July 9, 2012

The Iowa Tourism Office is running ads featuring Iowa wine in Chicago, Kansas City and Minneapolis, according to Coleen Murphy, Partnerships Manager at the Iowa Tourism Office.   The ads are appearing in national magazines, online, and in shopping mall displays.

Murphy is also on the three member board of the Iowa Wine and Beer Promotion Board.   The Wine and Beer Promotion Board sometimes places its own advertising, but the current campaign,  which includes wine as part of a broader message about visiting Iowa, is being funded by The Iowa Tourism Office,  according to Iowa Tourism Manager Shawna Lode.

The Iowa Tourism Office is part of the Iowa Economic Development Authority which also oversees the Iowa Wine and Beer Promotion Board.   A $1.75 per gallon wholesale tax on wine funds Iowa Wine and Beer Promotion Board with an approximate annual budget of $200,000.

The broader Iowa tourism campaign targets “social moms”  who are women with children who are likely to share vacation experiences on social media or through networks of animate friends,  Murphy said.   Websites that mothers are likely to frequent, like The Weather Channel,  are used as ad vehicles.  Iowa Tourism tracks not only web advertising responses but also monitors any increases in the number of  “likes” the Iowa Facebook page receives,  she said.    Using weekly tracking,  Iowa Tourism will change internet advertising quickly if they believe a website ad is not working.

According to Murphy,  the Iowa Wine and Beer Promotion Board is having success with its own recent promotions.  Among those recent efforts are

  • A free mobile phone application launched during April ’11 now has more than 2,500 users who downloaded the app from www.iowawineandbeer.com. The app  has a five-star ranking on Apple’s app website.
  • A new 2012 directory of Iowa wineries with a press run of 50,000 copies was released in June.
  • The Wine and Beer promotion board also produces 100,000 wine and beer directories that are shipped  to hotels, tourist attractions and rest areas.  The directory features both wine and beer.
  • The Iowa Wine and Beer website gets 35,000-40,000 visits per year according to Murphy and traffic to the site has been steadily increasing.   The Travel Iowa tourism site, which gets over 500,000 visits per year,  links to the Iowa Wine and Beer site.

This February,  Travel Iowa’s Valentine’s Day Wine and Dine Promotion received 3,700 registrations.  Winners received gift certificates good at Iowa wineries and restaurants and an iPad that came pre loaded the Iowa wine apps.

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Mark Ganchiff

Mark Ganchiff is the publisher of Midwest Wine Press, the leading source of news on the growing wine industry in the central United States. Mark has been a wine judge at the 2012 and 2014 INDY International Wine Competition, the 2014 Cold Climate Wine Competition, the 2013 Mid-American Wine Competition, the 2012 Illinois State Fair Wine Competition and the 2013 Michigan Wine Competition. He also enjoys speaking at wine events including the Cold Climate Wine Conference, the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association Annual Meeting, the Midwest Grape and Wine Conference and the Wisconsin Fruit and Vegetable Conference. Mark's articles about regional wine have appeared in Vineyard & Winery Management, WineMaker and several regional magazines. Mark is a Level One Sommelier in the Court of Master Sommeliers. He lives in Louisville, but also has a residence in Chicago.

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