Global cleaning, health and personal care brand, Reckitt Benckiser, will cap off its fifth straight year of organic sales growth with a new recession-approved media strategy – moving TV dollars to online video.

The company, which controls brands such as Lysol, Air Wick, Mucinex, Finish and Clearasil, plans to shift an estimated $20 million in TV ad dollars to the web for more than 15 of its brands.

The shift in strategy is significant for the company, which, according to TNS Media Intelligence, spent up to 90% of its $475 million measured-media budget on TV and less than $1 million in measured spending on the web in 2008.

Marc Fonzetti, Reckitt Benckiser’s media manager and internet specialist, says the company has dabbled in social media and email-based consumer-relationship management promotions in the past, but had yet to plant any major roots in online video until now.

“We’ve seen a fundamental shift in consumer consumption and media habits migrating over to digital video. Obviously YouTube started it, but we want to aligned with professional content. With broadband getting to the scale that it has, the shift has happened. The integration of traditional and digital media is here now,” explains Fonzetti.