Screw Micro Sites. Invest In The Brand’s Macro Site.

Ad Age looks at how many consumers choose to interact with brand websites. The numbers are pretty outstanding, at least in the examples given.

Corporate and brand websites — once derided as “brochureware” in a digital marketing world that quickly moved to sexier applications — are getting a rehabilitation of sorts as their traffic numbers vie with those of many consumer sites in the web’s long tail.
Such package-goods marketers as Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever don’t sell many products directly online. Their low-cost, low-involvement brands tend not to generate much search. Yet the websites of P&G and Unilever now reach nearly 6 million and 3 million unique visitors, respectively, in the U.S. each month, according to ComScore Media Metrix.

The artcile goes on to point out that monthly web audiences for P&G and Unilever brands now easily swamp the audiences of many magazines, cable and syndicated TV shows where they advertise.