In the middle of the past year’s economic mess, General Mills was able to increase their second quarter earnings by a whopping 49% through – you guessed it – strategic marketing. You can read the details in  AdAge and  The Wall Street Journal (you’ll need to log in to read them, it’s worth the effort if you have access).

Did you notice more Pilsbury ads last year? How about Cheerios or Yoplait? Odds are, you did.

With the lousy economy, more and more of us have been eating meals at home. Sucks for  restaurants, but a great opportunity for General Mills (SWOT anyone?). To capitalize on this and other opportunities, the company boosted last year’s second quarter ad spend by $40 million – a 37% increase – focusing the spend on “high ROI ideas”. The result of this and other strategic moves was a very surprised Wall Street when the Big G announced their 49% increase in second quarter earnings.

General Mills’ strategy involved:

- Identifying the existing marketing opportunities
- Pinpointing and dumping their non-performing products
- Increasing their marketing spend on performing products
- Targeting ads to reach high-return market segments
- Balancing their media spend for highest return
- Investing in international growth
- Prepping new products to launch in 2010 (Chocolate Cheerios anyone?)

Marketing strategy – yes! Kudos to General Mills for taking the right steps and reaping the rewards. Think I’ll go have a bowl of Wheaties now.

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