General Mills is a large food company that produces many well-known brands like Cheerios, Pillsbury, and Betty Crocker. The document discusses General Mills' business, challenges in competing with other major brands, and goals of promoting healthy eating. It proposes using social media to promote General Mills breakfast products and ease parents' morning routines, evaluating the campaign through incentives, and maintaining social media efforts throughout the year.

1. General Mills
By: Stephanie Kastelic
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Hi everyone,
I choose to do my presentation on General Mills. I thought that they would be an interesting
company to work with for social media.

2. General Mills Business
On average, U.S. shoppers place at least one General
Mills product into their shopping cart each time they
visit the grocery store.
Some of the brands that are included:
Sunday, April 10, 2011
I’m sure everyone has heard of General Mills before.. One quote that I found interesting was
“On average, U.S. shoppers place at least one General Mills product into their shpping cart
each time they visit the grocery store.
General Mills has many brands that are under the parent name: they include Pillsbury, Green
Giant, Betty Crocker, Nature Valley, Cheerios, and Fiber One.

3. Challenges & Goals
Challenges
Competitors
Goals
Promote breakfast as the most important
meal of the day.
Accomplish healthy eating among children
and teens.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
General Mills mission statement is to nourish every one by making their lives healthier, easier
and richer. General Mills is Nourishing Lives.
Some of General Mills competitors are Kellogg, Danone (Dannon), Seneca Foods.
You say Danone, I say Dannon; let's call the whole thing one of the largest dairy food and
water producers in the world.
Seneca Foods has a can-do attitude. The company mainly cans and freezes vegetables, but it
also makes apple chips, maraschino cherries, and candied fruits used in baked goods. A top
US producer of canned vegetables, its brands include Aunt Nellie's, Blue Boy, Diamond,
Libby's, Seneca, and Stokely. About 19% of the company's sales come from processing Green
Giant vegetables for General Mills.
Location as irony -- Battle Creek, Michigan-based Kellogg is in a constant battle for the #1
spot in the US cereal market with its main rival, General Mills. (In 2009 General Mills' sales
were some $14.7 billion, compared to Kellogg's second place $12.6 billion.) But Kellogg's
boasts many a familiar brand name, including Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Corn
Pops, and Rice Krispies.

4. Integrated Theme
Mom’s have enough
things to worry about
in the morning. Why
not have one less thing
to worry about? Try
General Mills breakfast
products to ease the
day!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Message
•Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. No matter how hectic the morning is your
family and you need to make time to eat something healthy for breakfast.

5. Key Components
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Big Idea to motivate online sharing
•When General Mills promotes the healthy living on their social media sites the fast paced
mom will be able to view it on the go. Hopefully, moms realize that young children and
teens aren’t getting the right nutrition and that they can help change their diet by giving
them a healthy breakfast to start the day!
In 2009, General Mills had a blog about Hot Mom Reviews, Hot Product Reviews by Cool Moms
and I think it would be a good way to get the consumers involved in the products and give
reviews.

6. Evaluation
Incentives on
Social Media Sites
Sunday, April 10, 2011
•General Mills could evaluate the success of this campaign by offering an incentive on
Facebook, Twitter, and their Blog to see how many people are actually viewing their
content. When people like or tweet about a product doesn’t mean that they are actually
buying the products. For General Mills to get an accurate evaluation they will need to offer
an incentive that will make mom’s want to partake in General Mills campaign.

7. Budget & Timeline
15% of General Mills advertising budget
should be towards social media.
Social Media needs to be continued all year:
To keep the consumers informed
So they don’t forget about the General Mills
brand.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
•It’s hard to give General Mills a budget because they make millions of dollars a year.
Normally, when your working with a client they will give you a budget that your company
has to work with. So I thought that if I was to use 15% of their spending towards social
media that would help get the point across to reach the target demographic.
I did find out that in 2009 that they spent half of there advertising budget on online
advertising.
General Mills has increased their marketing to Hispanic-Americans by 70% in 2010 which
means that they are spending 66 million on advertising to Hispanic-Americans.
•For an effect campaign I believe that General Mills campaign should be a year long. There
needs to be time to get the message out and then for it to spread through the internet.