I think this will be more interesting to observe once the initial buzz wears off and people are tweeting more about Skittles than the fact that Skittles has this site design. Also, I just think it's an interesting idea for a product like candy, because why does anyone go to a candy site, anyway?
Eli Natan
· 9 months ago
Skittles understands the value of social media and has used it to leverage there brand via the hearts of Internet users. I think the best part about this whole equation is that Skittles barely invested a penny to the creation of their site though the strategy behind may have been costly to generate such buzz and word of mouth. I definitely agree with you that the design could be a lot nicer, but overall genius idea. Another victory for twitter and the web community. Way to go!
Facebook User
· 9 months ago
This is pretty awesome. I just hope people don't get crazy with it and start tweeting terrible things with the word skittles appended to it (like I've already seen...)
Jay Christopher West
· 9 months ago
With the amount of conversations going on - i think it is brilliant.
Vinko
· 9 months ago
I think Skittles' approach is progressive and align with the current trend of engagement with customers/fans of a brand.
Having said that, it is also a dangerous approach without incorporating a more intelligent filter(s) to the content that Skittles is scrapping and presenting to visitors to Skittles.com. As a result this approach may damage the brand more than help it.
One such intelligent filter is JustSignal, which will help client analyze Twitter stream for a fee, before exposing the consolidated Twitter stream to the public.
Perhaps my favorite example is the Tracker on Peter Himmelman's Furious World site: http://furiousworld.com
Josh Spector
· 9 months ago
Absolutely love this move by Skittles - makes a lot of sense. Also love the timing since it comes on the heels of a post I just wrote about the decreasing importance of websites as increasingly people access their content through social media: http://www.fwdcomedy.com/2009/03/your-website-w...
Ryan Drumwright
· 9 months ago
I couldn't agree with you more. Nice post. Viva SoMe! And thanks for the heads up on Skittles. You were the first one to let me know via twitter.
Ryan
nferno
· 9 months ago
I hate disqus. I really do. Would not work with my facebook connect and i lost my original reply.
Anyway as I attempted to say earlier. I think it's a success and genius move. Who was visiting skittles.com two days ago? People are talking about skittles and even if they're not, they're tweeting the word skittles just to get on the skittles front page. That has a major effect.The repetitiveness of typing skittles for Twitter Followship will help seep skittles into their subconscious. People who are following them will be thinking about skittles too because there's all this skittles talk.
As for "what about all the profane and nasty tweets being pushed in association with skittles" well, this large mass of people going to skittles.com right now are doing it because of tweets (majority of them anyway), so they're either probably aware in advance that there's going to be trolling, or trying to see their own tweets hit the front page.
I doubt anybody's visiting skittles.com to find out more about the brand, and if they actually are, well that little flash widget overlaying the page has links to wikipedia entries for the different products.
You're darn right it's already happened elsewhere. It's been all over the ad pubs that the site is a blatant rip-off of Modernista!s site launched last year: http://www.modernista.com
I think the decision to adopt social media so fully is absolutely spot-on. However, their implementation is an open invitation to spammer abuse.
It's one thing to embrace the crowd. It's quite another to lay down on the sidewalk and invite them to trample you. See #skittlefisting, 4chan takeover, etc...
@LATimesNystrom: looks like #skittles experiment is backfiring. I wonder if their interactive agency in on call 24/7/365? twitter is officially a spam magnet
@drcongo: @olishaw http://agency.com apparently made the new Skittles taste like shit and give you AIDS and cancer and fiddle with your kids site.
It only takes a quick glance to find dozens of comments on the twitter search that I wouldn't want ANYWHERE NEAR my homepage if I were CEO of the company.
There are hundreds of these negative comments in the #skittles feed. Social media experimenters, beware. If you do social media right, you can get a crowd of evangelists telling the world how cool you are. Do it wrong, and nobody will notice. Do it really wrong, and your brand will get slammed.
Shazwi
· 9 months ago
Three words : What the hell?
Ok I think I'm going crazy looking at this. This is just like a slipshot work by some guy eating ice cream in front of his computer screen. This is just too raw.
Someone, revive me.
Calum Brannan-West
· 9 months ago
Great PR stunt!
Opher Yunger
· 9 months ago
Its great that brands are realizing that the conversations people are already having about there products are way better than the ones they have. Modernista actually did this a while back with there site, way better navigation though. http://modernista.com
If skittles is a rip off of modernista then both are cheaper copies of the superior execution by the rem tour fan site http://tour.remhq.com/ . but lets be real this is not a new concept. Triumph the dog did it back in 2000 with his formetopoopon web site trick. same idea different execution
Brian
· 9 months ago
What if some jokesters start a campaign to say nothing but bad things about Skittles on Twitter?
ecommerce solutions
· 9 months ago
Lot's of good and bad comments flying around about Skittles most recent approach. However, have never heard so much about the brand prior. Looks like there's a real lesson about Twitter here if you're paying attention.
Chris Johnson
· 9 months ago
WOW - blind faith in Twitter???? Nope, just a smart and "sweet" approach to social media and getting consumers to generate buzz around the Skittles brand. There may be some risk in the approach, but the benefit outweighs the potential brand harm. I posted my response here: http://blog.dna13.com/skittles-and-social-media...
Chris Johnson Founder & CMO dna13 inc.
JOhn Jones
· 9 months ago
Wow, I love Skittles. The new orange ones totally ROCK!
Skittles will yank the fillings right out of your head.
Jeff Putz
· 9 months ago
I can't believe how many people are sucking off Skittles (pun intentional) for this. Not only has it been done before, but you social media nerds refuse to ask the critical questions about whether or not it makes any sense.
RJBailey2008
· 9 months ago
Interesting in concept, but it doesn't really grab me.
Sebastian
· 9 months ago
Awesome
Hubbers
· 9 months ago
Skittles may "get it" but they have gotten it quite late in the piece. One of the first things I did when I started my own ecommerce site (http://www.banglebangle.co.uk/) was to start flickr and facebook social media accounts that relate to my brand.
That was nearly two years ago.
IamJackson
· 9 months ago
Gawker posted on this too, though in comparison, I think folks on mashable might be overthinking this:
"Twitter users are, as planned, including the word "Skittles" in their posts in order to have the honor of appearing on the Skittles.com home page...
The company just wants people hearing "Skittles this" and "Skittles that" over and over again until they haul their butts down to the corner store or office vending machine.
In other words, Mars has reduced its advertising nearly, but not quite all the way, to mindless repetition of a single word. Sort of like how it reduced candy nearly, but not quite all the way, to pure colored sugar. With Skittles."
The very idea that anyone would include a candy brand (and a lousy one at that) in their social universe is a pretty good example of how inane and overhyped social media is. Tweets from Skittles... right. Talk about a solution in search of a problem.
Spine
· 9 months ago
Cool! It's almost enough to make you forget this is just another lame vehicle for high-fructose corn syrup.
jerome
· 9 months ago
does anyone who doesn't work in the digital / advertising industry really give a toss about it?
Rob
· 9 months ago
Mmmmm, Skittles. Nothing like sugar, hydrogenated oil and food coloring...
James
· 9 months ago
Awesome
Zach Goodwin
· 9 months ago
The implementation was definitely flawed -- as evidenced by the racial slurs that they let slip in -- but, overall, this was genius. Genius -- and extremely cheap. Best post I've read on the whole thing thus far: http://www.youthmarketing.com/skittles-and-the-...
Another thing they should consider for next time: they didn't grab relevant Twitter handles before launching. Now, @skittlescandy (www.twitter.com/skittlescandy) belongs to someone who is not a delicious, rainbow-colored candy.
Zach
Langston Richardson
· 9 months ago
While I can appreciate those who praise the move by Skittles, I wonder about the effect of corporations and brands use of social media to "become a part of the conversation." What we have seen is in effect a party being thrown. The party excited everyone. It made the news and people reported everything from the events of the party to the people who planned it to what does it mean going forward.
But parties end. Real people go on having real conversations with people they have meaningful connections with. Campaigns are a lot like parties. They are events. They are ads that distract for a time. But it's not a conversation. That is what people want in social networks and any network. It is sharing. Skittles thus far is a party.
What may be something to consider about social media initiatives from the 1999 era (yes it existed) is blindness of those parties for people who are targeted, a group of people increasingly cynical about advertising. MySpace and Facebook later reinvented (repacked) the buzz around social networks and the likes of Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter rounded out the today's era of social media. They have worked because they are real connections. Brands may learn a hard lessons that they will need to be less about party promotions than about the long and involved work of becoming more real. Sharing is a two way street and is not a sell.
Good point made by CoachDeb a.o. Another Web 2.0 / Social Media marketing stunt and a cheap way to refresh your website, too. If you put them together you get cheap stunt - Modernista did not have enough to tip it. Interesting, how many are talking about the Whopper Sacrifice campaign? If any, it's old news anyway. Is there a study on sleep deprivation, work productivity and Social Networking? I'd put my money on correlation, wait until it tips off and pour causation in the mix. About the life cycle - check Google trends for Skittles in a couple of weeks. The spike already began to drown in noise.
frank barry
· 9 months ago
I think Skittles did something really bold. It could work out nicely or turn out to be a disaster. Only time will tell i guess. I give them credit for their efforts and doing something that no large business has done before. There's a lot to be learned from this.
I think this will be more interesting to observe once the initial buzz wears off and people are tweeting more about Skittles than the fact that Skittles has this site design. Also, I just think it's an interesting idea for a product like candy, because why does anyone go to a candy site, anyway?
- 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them - Why Big Brands Struggle With Social Media - Why Brands ABSOLUTELY DO Belong on Twitter - Presenting: 10 of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media - What Are the Top Performing Brands on Facebook?
bill
· 8 months ago
For such a creative company it's dissapointing to see them not actually DO anything creative in these spaces. They have APIs...lame to not take advantage. Your average hack wedding photographer does the same thing. Same critique goes for the Modernista site that they ripped off.
Ezra
· 8 months ago
We were inspired by the concept and took it a step further. Check out http:://www.lume.me Hope you like it.
jack
· 8 months ago
wow
Sara
· 6 months ago
I like the shanerama.com site better! They have a really cool rewards platform but it is the same format.
Suits for Toddlers
· 6 months ago
I've been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work
Suits for Toddlers
· 6 months ago
I've been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work
boydrewboy
· 3 months ago
I like the tweets capped on the skittles site, especially the RT from @nferng that suggests that the rainbow in skittles suggests a conspiracy of interracial promiscuity... and @vlingo saying that the skittles makeover is an unwise idea
All Comments
Having said that, it is also a dangerous approach without incorporating a more intelligent filter(s) to the content that Skittles is scrapping and presenting to visitors to Skittles.com. As a result this approach may damage the brand more than help it.
One such intelligent filter is JustSignal, which will help client analyze Twitter stream for a fee, before exposing the consolidated Twitter stream to the public.
Perhaps my favorite example is the Tracker on Peter Himmelman's Furious World site: http://furiousworld.com
Ryan
Anyway as I attempted to say earlier. I think it's a success and genius move. Who was visiting skittles.com two days ago? People are talking about skittles and even if they're not, they're tweeting the word skittles just to get on the skittles front page. That has a major effect.The repetitiveness of typing skittles for Twitter Followship will help seep skittles into their subconscious. People who are following them will be thinking about skittles too because there's all this skittles talk.
As for "what about all the profane and nasty tweets being pushed in association with skittles" well, this large mass of people going to skittles.com right now are doing it because of tweets (majority of them anyway), so they're either probably aware in advance that there's going to be trolling, or trying to see their own tweets hit the front page.
I doubt anybody's visiting skittles.com to find out more about the brand, and if they actually are, well that little flash widget overlaying the page has links to wikipedia entries for the different products.
Seems like a good move all around in my eyes.
p.s. shameless plug http://twitter.com/nferno
http://www.adrants.com/2009/02/skittles-rips-th...
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=134946
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2009/02/agencyc...
It's one thing to embrace the crowd. It's quite another to lay down on the sidewalk and invite them to trample you. See #skittlefisting, 4chan takeover, etc...
@LATimesNystrom: looks like #skittles experiment is backfiring. I wonder if their interactive agency in on call 24/7/365? twitter is officially a spam magnet
@drcongo: @olishaw http://agency.com apparently made the new Skittles taste like shit and give you AIDS and cancer and fiddle with your kids site.
It only takes a quick glance to find dozens of comments on the twitter search that I wouldn't want ANYWHERE NEAR my homepage if I were CEO of the company.
There are hundreds of these negative comments in the #skittles feed. Social media experimenters, beware. If you do social media right, you can get a crowd of evangelists telling the world how cool you are. Do it wrong, and nobody will notice. Do it really wrong, and your brand will get slammed.
Ok I think I'm going crazy looking at this. This is just like a slipshot work by some guy eating ice cream in front of his computer screen. This is just too raw.
Someone, revive me.
Agency.com better be ready to defend themselves!
Chris Johnson
Founder & CMO
dna13 inc.
RT
www.privacy-center.pro.tc
That was nearly two years ago.
"Twitter users are, as planned, including the word "Skittles" in their posts in order to have the honor of appearing on the Skittles.com home page...
The company just wants people hearing "Skittles this" and "Skittles that" over and over again until they haul their butts down to the corner store or office vending machine.
In other words, Mars has reduced its advertising nearly, but not quite all the way, to mindless repetition of a single word. Sort of like how it reduced candy nearly, but not quite all the way, to pure colored sugar. With Skittles."
http://gawker.com/5163329/skittles-maker-invent...
Another thing they should consider for next time: they didn't grab relevant Twitter handles before launching. Now, @skittlescandy (www.twitter.com/skittlescandy) belongs to someone who is not a delicious, rainbow-colored candy.
Zach
But parties end. Real people go on having real conversations with people they have meaningful connections with. Campaigns are a lot like parties. They are events. They are ads that distract for a time. But it's not a conversation. That is what people want in social networks and any network. It is sharing. Skittles thus far is a party.
What may be something to consider about social media initiatives from the 1999 era (yes it existed) is blindness of those parties for people who are targeted, a group of people increasingly cynical about advertising. MySpace and Facebook later reinvented (repacked) the buzz around social networks and the likes of Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter rounded out the today's era of social media. They have worked because they are real connections. Brands may learn a hard lessons that they will need to be less about party promotions than about the long and involved work of becoming more real. Sharing is a two way street and is not a sell.
I talk a little bit about What Nonprofits can learn from Skittles.
http://twitter.com/franswaa
- 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
- Why Big Brands Struggle With Social Media
- Why Brands ABSOLUTELY DO Belong on Twitter
- Presenting: 10 of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media
- What Are the Top Performing Brands on Facebook?
I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work
I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work