More Brands Seeing ROI w/ Digital

Yesterday I blogged about how two established hotel brands have seen tremendous growth by investing in existing and new digital channels. Mobile, display, etc. It seems that other well-known, trusted brands are seeing similar success within the digital channel. And, not only are they seeing success, but they are also increasing their marketing spends within the channel to support the brand and take advantage of competitors who are going into hiding.

According to Ian Friendly of General Mills, they have "been diverting funds online, driving traffic to recipe sites such as BettyCrocker.com. The company's cooking sites had about 8 million visitors last month. General Mills also recently launched a free Betty Crocker iPhone application, which offers meal suggestions based on what's in a consumer's pantry. We are seeing very high returns from digital than broadcast," Mr. Friendly said, declining to give the percentage of spending that's moved online. "It's not that our TV ads don't work, but when you're watching TV you're doing it for a different reason. When you go to a website you have a very specific purpose."

Again, I am not advocating shifting 100% of a brand's marketing spend to digital, but this is now a second strong argument for a brand to evaluate their media spend and explore shifting dollars to mediums that can prove high levels of ROI.

Thoughts?

- Chris