Coupon delivery has expanded its territory online.

Karl Schmidt is director of consumer price promotion, corporate coupon planning and development at General Mills. Schmidt also has worked at News Corp. as the vice president of sales, group promotion manager at the Pillsbury Co. He started out as a technical representative at 3M Co. then moved to Young & Rubicam New York, where he was an account executive. He has a B.S. in chemical engineering from University of Notre Dame and a MBA from Columbia University.

iMediaConnection: What was your biggest online "win" this year, and how did you sell it throughout the company?

Schmidt: My area at General Mills is focused on coupon strategy and planning, 70 percent -- plus of which is executed via the Sunday FSI (free-standing insert). Over the past couple of years, we have tested Internet coupon delivery and seen positive results in terms of efficiency, but the scale was always small. This year, we agreed to participate in a new Internet-based coupon program, Consumer Networks, which is a network of over 200 newspaper Web sites. Collectively, they have a large number of visitors, in fact larger than any of the major Web portals, and if those visitors can be redirected to the coupon savings page it will result in a program with large volume impact. The sell-in at General Mills was very simple: A digital FSI using newspaper Web sites is a strong analogy to the printed FSI using traditional newspapers.

iMediaConnection: How has your job changed this year?

Schmidt: A greater involvement with our Internet planning group to ensure that all of our coupon programs are integrated.

iMediaConnection: What surprised you in the online world this year?

Schmidt: A large number of our consumers prefer the Internet as a coupon delivery vehicle because they can access coupons whenever they want (e.g.: at the end of the work day prior to grocery shopping) rather than just the Sunday newspaper

iMediaConnection: Have you realigned internal structures and resources to simplify or increase integrated marketing?

Schmidt: Yes, people from my group are assigned responsibility for online coupons and work on integrated internet planning teams.

iMediaConnection: How do you determine your marketing mix -- and how has the role of online in it changed?

Schmidt: Our benchmark never changes:  cost per incremental case. Online is still evolving, but shows promise given the low capital cost structure.

iMediaConnection: What haven't you brought into the marketing mix yet that you want to try?

Schmidt: Nothing so far. General Mills continues to push for new, innovative coupon delivery methods.

iMediaConnection: Have you seen specific evidence of online driving offline sales?

Schmidt: Yes, but only in a small-scale way so far.

iMediaConnection: Are you using consultants, software, agencies or other tools to help with search engine marketing?

Schmidt: No.

iMediaConnection: What do you believe is the future of ad agencies?

Schmidt: We do not use outside/ad agencies in our strategy and planning.

iMediaConnection: What do we need to be doing as an industry to help you make Interactive marketing a bigger piece of your marketing pie?

Schmidt: A focus on fewer but bigger programs that can be communicated to consumers.  We hope that the Consumer Networks platform meets this objective.

iMediaConnection: Are you being affected by any consumer-generated marketing (CGM) -- blogs, user groups, etc.? Are you using any blogs or other social networking tools to market?

Schmidt: No, not at this time.

iMediaConnection: How important is CRM in your marketing efforts? Give us an example of what's working.

Schmidt: This is a separate area within General Mills, but one that my group gets involved in as it relates to coupon content.

iMediaConnection: What are you investing in now for next year's marketing program?

Schmidt: We are planning to increase our spending behind consumer networks (pending continued positive results) and CRM.

iMediaConnection: Does anything still frustrate you about what online can or can't do?

Schmidt: Consumer behavior is difficult to change, so developing a new coupon platform always takes longer than you estimate.

iMediaConnection: What blogs do you read?

Schmidt: None on a regular basis.

iMediaConnection: What are your daily "must-see" Web sites and why?

Schmidt: Other than local newspapers, I prefer to receive newsletters on subjects of interest to me.

iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days, other than iMediaConnection.com, of course?

Schmidt: Ad Age and WSJ.