What is clear about Skittles.com:
- it has transformed into a social media portal to social platforms including Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Wikipedia
- it has caused much buzz on many of these platforms, particularly Twitter, in the last 48 hours
- it continues to cause much debate amongst the social media pundits
- it resembles other websites, particularly this one. (have you never stole an idea?
)
Agency.com and Mars (owner of the Skittles brand) have not revealed any:
- objectives for the property (that I am aware of)
- insights that led them here
- metrics
Why would they, given the scrutiny they’re now under? Sigh.
So? Skittles.com, Pass/Fail? How can we possibly know? I’m sure it’s too early to tell, even for Mars.
Does skittles.com make up for Agency.com’s famous Subway social media gaff? I don’t think Mars cares.
Let the debates continue. I hope that Mars shares some of their objectives so we can see if Agency.com delivered on them or not. In the meantime, I reserve judgment and tip my hat to one of the best brand campaign examples of radical trust I’ve ever seen on face value alone.
P.S. My favorite pundit quote so far regarding skittles social media makeover of Skittles.com?
“Is the site the breakthrough humankind has waited for?”
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18 Responses to “Skittish on Skittles?”
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March 3rd, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Social Marketers Skittish on Skittles? I think it’s a little early to call it… don’t you? Radicaltrust.ca weighs in http://bit.ly/sdagn
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Good context Collin. People are quick to dismiss brand initiatives without understanding the contraints or objectives faced. There’s a little thing called budget that also gets thrown into the planning process
Ian
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Thanks Ian.
I think budgets certainly played a role in this one… but I can’t help but wonder how anybody can call this thing!
I wish social media pundits would be more open to experimentation… like everything that is done is some sort of game changer. Now is the time for exploration… that might be all this is! Who knows?
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
It’s definitely tough to call this thing one way or another, but I have to say that I consider it a bit of a miss that they (apparently) had nothing new to say about the brand or its offerings with this initiative.
It would have been really nice to see the use of this stunt in the service of a larger idea that somehow laddered back to a message. Any message would do. Even a slight repositioning like “Spread the Rainbow” or “Share the Rainbow” would have been *something*.
No such bone was thrown. Instead, we basically got: “Bleaaaargh!!! Skittles! Look at us!”
And they basically got: “Hey, If I say “vagina” and “#skittles” in the same tweet will it still show up?”
A great tactic in search of a strategy in my opinion. I think Agency.com once again revealed that it’s got a bit of a tin ear when it comes to social media.
But what the hell do I know, I just run a food store now.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 pm
All fair points Bloggerton.
I wonder if not making a statement is one hell of a statement itself.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hi Martin,
Kyle Flaherty blogged on Skittles also: http://bit.ly/10UuZp
I agree with you about the blurry objectives of the Skittles social media "campaign". I mentioned this on Kyle’s blog already, but it struck me that Skittles just opened the floodgates of social media, but neglected to manage the discourse responsibly.
I’m curious to hear more from the company.
This comment was originally posted on http://martinspalette.blogspot.com/)“>my(PR)palette
March 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
social media pundits self identify Skittles’ objectives then get critical for not meeting them. presumptuous much? http://bit.ly/sdagn
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 4th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Short answer: maybe!
Long answer: very maybe!
March 4th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Introducing campaigns to social media will no doubt cause sparks.
Social media is evolving… like it or not… and we can’t continue to be critical of the ad guys for not participating if we are uninformed and critical when they do. When I worked on Digital Snippets with Social Media Group and Ford … 99% of the commentary coming out of the social media fishbowl was completely missing the point. Very few bothered to understand our objectives… they just got critical based on their own fictions and self proclaimed “ownership” of the space. What they didn’t realize was that we exceeded our objectives on that program.
It’s hard not to take it personally when your peers turn on you like that. Even when we explained it, the hard lines had been drawn, so the conversation never evolved into a productive dialogue. Just advice on meeting objectives defined by third parties who never understood the challenge in the first place.
But in the end… the client was happy and even expanded the program because it was working on our objectives. Isn’t that the goal for any business?
Is skittles a long term thing? I dunno? Do you?
Is skittles going to wait out this noise from us before they launch their next round? I dunno? Do you?
Everybody is entitled to their opinions. But most of them are not worth a grain of sand unless they are informed.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
It’s interesting how nobody is accusing modernista.com of crimes against socialmedia/humanity… Hmmm. I had no problem with them. I wonder why, now that a brand is doing it, that it is some sort of major social media crisis.
March 4th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
i think you can get a sense of objectives here – its got to be an entrenchment strategy. Basically skittles are something you love or hate. They need to make sure the people who love them really really love them. The people who twitter about them, make vids about them, etc. they will undoubtedly buy more of them and re-affirm their love for skittles by participating. if you know you don’t like skittles, no campaign – traditional or otherwise, is going to make you like them if you don’t. in that sense it is brilliant – skittles fans are actively inspiring other fans to be even bigger fans. okay maybe some people will say, hmmm, maybe there is something magical in skittles i missed – look at these raving fans! but to me that is way secondary.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Man, I dont get it….
Read about the skittles online action, mistakenly entered in my birthdate incorrectly, and not able to access the site. At all.
Find it quite amusing really
But it certainly does nothing for the brand, in fact for me it generates negative brand equity. I know its a voice of one, but my experience is most certainly negative.
March 15th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Revised: I just changed the headline to this post and added ‘Skittles’, so it’s a bit easier to find if anyone comes looking…
This comment was originally posted on http://martinspalette.blogspot.com/)“>my(PR)palette
March 18th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Collin, I like you angle you’ve taken, putting the thought-starters out there (i.e. objectives, metrics, ROI).
At the end of the day, Skittles in a goddam candy. That’s it – nothing more. It’s a one-buck sugar high. I can’t see any fuzzy “brand value” in driving traffic and conversations if retail sales don’t spike as a result. If awareness and consideration of Skittles candy increases but sales don’t, the campaign will have been pointless.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Now the brand home page is a pull of the sponsored page on YouTube. The gimmick continues. Next week, it’ll be Vimeo, MySpace, who knows (or cares – not me).
If you look at Compete data (http://bit.ly/skittish) – directionally, not as absolute – the brand site gets practically no traffic: a paltry 20,000 uniques/month. The brand probably pays $1 for site support and maintenance for every unique visitor. Blimey.
We’ve seen the creative agency go gimmick-of-the-month. We need someone from Nielsen to spill the beans: have Skittles sales increased?
March 18th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Darcy
The “home page” changes frequently on some sort of schedule between Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Wikipedia.
I think this was always the plan. Nobody said word one about it until the first time Twitter showed up on the home page in rotation.
I agree, sales are the ultimate metric. But you know as well as I do that selling sugar is a very competitive territory, and if you don’t have a brand, you are just a bag of sugar.
Their brand is all about the rainbow, and I think it works here.
March 20th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Some definite pros and cons to the new Skittles website. How it’s applied to the corporate world may have a lot of advantages if you are willing to take the downfalls. I wrote a post myself on the pros/cons. http://blog.9thsphere.com/blog/social-networking-your-next-website
This comment was originally posted on http://www.onedegree.ca/)“>One Degree
December 31st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
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