Skittles revamped its website to reflect its web presence, effectively outsourcing their website. Why internalize your presence when all of the places that are relevant to your customers are elsewhere? Charlie O’Donnell @ceonyc, as well as others, seem to think this move by Skittles isn’t a great one for social media branding. I tend to take the opposite stance on this one.
Skittles may not be doing things completely integrated according to others’ highest social media standards but they’re starting the conversation that is most relevant to a majority of their consumers. Skittles is a fun product that isn’t necessary to survive. Knowing this they’ve linked up where they exist on the social web in a relevant way: Facebook to connect, Wikipedia for details about them & their products, Flickr for photos & YouTube for videos and Twitter for real-time information. Which brings us to Twitter- why no official account?
The road to success starts with one step
Skittles is represented in all of the places they reference on their website except one: Twitter. What happens when the buzz on Twitter Search dies down? Then what? Is this lack of Twitter account an overt commentary on their view on Twitter as a realtime Google Search? If it were anything but this they would have created a Twitter account before this social media marketing experiment.
Their brand name @skittles is currently being squatted by someone. This is easily resolved with Twitter HQ, as other prominent identities have reclaimed their brand. In the unlikely situation that they weren’t able to reclaim their proprietary Twitter name, someone else is squatting a secondary name @skittlescandy with the sole purpose of holding & releasing it to them upon contact (although he is under the assumption that Skittles can DM him with a Twitter account). To my knowledge their parent company Mars doesn’t have an official Twitter account either. What does this all mean?
All the news that’s fit to print
In an L.A. Times article, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone @biz is quoted as saying that, “The implementation could be done in a more elegant way using our APIs” when speaking about Skittles’ search.twitter.com homepage feed. He goes on to say that “[Twitter will] get in touch with them and hopefully make some improvements.”
The point that Mr. Stone is missing is a huge one. Skittles doesn’t want a slick personalized interface. They want to put themselves on the same level as us and mirror their consumers‘ experience. We don’t have the luxury to customize our Twitter API’s for a uniquely personal experience so why should Skittles do that? By linking all of their personal information together in one place that is relevant for us they are effectively branding themselves as us. They are the common man.
Where did my candy go?
There is no wrong way to… use a Twitter. Ok, so that’s Reece’s slogan. What I’m getting at is that Twitter is many things to many people to be used in a variety of different ways. In the simplest terms, it is communication, unfiltered. By Skittles not setting up a Twitter account they are effectively communicating to us that communicating with us in this manner is not important to them. What is important is that all of us are communicating with each other about Skittles. They are putting the mirror up to our faces to show us that our community is coming together to talk about them in a variety of ways, and what’s more fun that chatting?
The only two reasons Skittles would be on Twitter in an official capacity would be to perpetuate the fun (we’re already doing that) and to answer questions (you can reach them via a contact form on their website). Everyone knows where Skittles can be bought. Suggestions or comments can be directed to their contact form, which I’m sure will be answered back. Not all communication needs to happen in real-time.
Taste the rainbow
Skittles are individual candies of different colors and flavors packaged in one bag labeled a specific name. In essence they have skittle-ized their website. They’ve taken all of their interactions on our social web (candies) and aggregated them all in one place (put them in a bag). This may not be sleek & elegant but they are our tools and it’s all we have. They are doing exactly what we do everyday. They are giving us back what we are familiar with.
The thing that is revolutionary here is that they have basically established a more intricate social web that is not multi-tab browser based but is on one page. It speaks to us particularly because it is easy to use and very familiar; it’s not trying to take our information and reformat it. This interface is probably the best way we can bridge our social networks to make them relevant and simple for all of our friends to interact with us wherever we are. Regardless of what you think it does or does not do for Skittles’ branding is besides the point here. With this website revamp they have effectively restructured our social web in a way that allows each company to retain their branding and at the same time link it all together to save valuable time.
Skittles gets the social web. It’s not about elegant or heavily branded websites. It’s about the connections. Skittles even gets the social web more than we think.
For them, it’s about connecting the connections. For me, that’s what connects.
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While I think that the rotating of the Skittles homepage to show Facebook one day, Twitter another should be changed, I agree that Skittles has taken a very important step.
I like your point about not using the customized API, though I do think that as they’re providing content on their site, they should see what “tweaks” they can make to ensure the most relevant content is captured (see drama over profanity and un-related content from yesterday for a strong reason why).
I do think Skittles could do MORE with social media, but think this is a great first step if they can keep up the momentum.
I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store, and seeing also if this expands to other Mars brands.
Katie Morse’s last blog post..misskatiemo: @upsydaysie – Someone also brought up the point that Pepsi should strive to be the "anti-Coke" – pepsi = new and constantly refreshing
for what it’s worth…
Skittles give me a major headache. And seeing the word “skittles” makes me cringe. I don’t like to even talk about them…but now I can’t quit thinking about them. I woke up wanting a bag of Skittles. I hate it when I get sucked in…especially on my own turf.
Mandy’s last blog post..Breaker, breaker
This is brilliant. I would love to feature this on my blog. May I?
AV Flox’s last blog post..Using Twitter More Effectively: Unfollow Everyone?
@ Katie Morse:
I do understand the need to finely craft your brand message, but as with any marketing effort the people who receive will do whatever they like with it. After it’s in their hands you have little say as to what to do with it. You either stay the course and wait for the “rowdy little brother” to get tired of trying to annoy you for attention. Eventually the chaff will dissipate and you will be left with a nice clean interface that truly reflects how your brand is received by others. Any time you give unfettered freedom to your consumers they’ll act in accordance of who they truly are- some egotistical some altruistic some obnoxious some benevolent but ALL are acting in accordance WITH your brand.
The first to the line is never the most refined, but they start the race. Skittles has upped the ante for companies to relevantly display and disseminate their social presence to their consumers. Long gone are the days of talking at me. I want you to talk with me. I especially want to know how you’re talking with the rest of us as well. Not every company’s answer will be the same. What matters here is that companies start to interact with us where we interact as well as aggregate all of those interactions in one place to make it easier for me to interact with them as well.
@ Mandy:
Brilliant branding is polarizing and insidious. Pop music is short for popular- it’s popular because it’s gets inside your head, rolls around and buries itself in the crevices of your brain, POPping up at random times later on. THAT is what brilliant branding does. You hated Skittles, then you wanted them, and NOW you can’t get them out of your mind. They have won because they now have a piece of real estate of your mind.
@ AVFlox:
Of course you can feature this on your brilliant blog http://omgomgomfg.com or anywhere else you see fit. Oftentimes many of your articles are inspiration for mine. I am proud to know someone of your caliber.
Damien – This is a brilliant, well thought out post, and makes me think that you should be advising Skittles on where to go next! But I wonder if they themselves thought through the promotion as well as you have, or if the analogy of the social web as a ‘big bag of Skittles’ was, in fact, their intention. I can certainly see some genius in that — and definite potential for expanding the campaign — though I’m inclined to say they didn’t think past the ‘buzz’ [as evidenced by no clear call to action, value proposition, or pull through beyond chatter on socnets and tech community commentary].
Personally, I am not a fan of the campaign (so far). I found it intrusive and gimmicky with little substance behind it. They took over my screen and forced their way into my purview to create manufactured buzz and mindshare. While having your brand top-of-mind is important, it is more compelling — and sustainable — when that mindshare stems from something meaningful, or is sparked by the value it imparts rather than usurping it via my social networks. It didn’t make me feel connected to the brand. It made me feel held hostage by it.
Skittles having a social media ‘presence’ doesn’t show me that they understand me, their customers — or the space. It showed me they know how to infiltrate the social web but not how to interact or build a community within it. They didn’t respect my community. They pummeled it. It was all about them, not me — or their customers.
Overall, the experience didn’t draw me in or engage me, and had little relevancy to me personally. It was just in-your-face cool, Modernista-esque technology that didn’t leave me wanting Skittles any more than it did to ever return to the site again. So they got me there once but they didn’t give me a reason to come back. That said, a candy company doesn’t necessarily need site stickiness but they do need to sell Skittles, and I don’t think the amount of chatter on Twitter is translatable to more people reaching for them in the checkout line.
At the end of the day, I think they achieved what they set out to do — get people *talking* about Skittles. But if they plan to make this a successful endeavor, they’ll need to get people *buying* Skittles. Was this an innovative campaign? Sure. Did it lay the groundwork for greater brand engagement and customer affinity? That remains to be seen.
Nice take, DB…
You bring up an interesting point about them not necessarily needing to ’speak’ within the Twitter stream in order to encourage the conversation. The website maneuver itself was indeed a tremendous source of influence – I hadn’t really considered this relatively-forgiving angle until reading your post. (Do no harm, right?)
That being said, I would certainly like to see them at least ‘accessible’ within the pot that they’ve stirred up. Right now, it feels a bit like they threw themselves a huge Skittles party, invited everyone, and silently skipped town. ;-)
All the best,
…D
Dan Dashnaw’s last blog post..Calling All Video Creators: Please Stabilize Your Audio Volume Levels.
@ Dan & @ Gennefer:
I see where you can feel that their website isn’t engaging or that they skipped town. I’ll ask this then: if this is the case what does this say about our beloved social networks then? Are they not engaging enough as they are? Because all Skittles did is take the most engaging social platforms and link them all together. If they aren’t engaging enough for you in that climate then I’m not sure how else they could engage deeper.
What else do you want from them? There’s really nothing else that i need from them. They gave me all the places that I could engage with them in one place. They basically put out an invitation to talk to them, which is its own form of engagement. It’s not the same form of engagement as them talking to us. Who’s to say that they need to actively reach out to me? Who’s to say I even want that from them?
Engagement comes in all different flavors, just like Skittles. There isn’t one answer for how a company should do things.
I do feel that this is the “see” part of the “see-saw”, literally and metaphorically. We are seeing what they are doing. We are waiting to say that we saw what they did next. It remains to be seen if they galvanize their public attention into translating viewers into consumers. That’s really the bottom line.
As Mandy said above, she hated Skittles, then she wanted them and now she can’t get them out of her head. They win. Personally I researched all the flavors of the rainbow in all their different bags. I wasn’t into Skittles before but it made me remember a favorite bag of mine, which now I will go out and buy. Again, they have won. That’s all that matters, is that your marketing/advertising does it’s job of turning viewers into consumers by turning buzz into money.
Great case study. I’m looking forward to what this means for us all, not just for companies, but for the social web as we know it.
I enjoy all of the comments I get here. Thanks guys. Without you this wouldn’t be a conversation. It would be a broadcasting system. ;D
The WORLD is a bag of skittles. This strategy is working from the inside to the outside (from concrete to abstract). The people who heard about the skittles thing on the internet are talking amongst themselves (as you’ve showed us) and also, they’re telling people offline about it. Some of them are going to stores and buying skittles while another consumer may see that person purchase a package and decide that they want one too. I can’t remember the last time I purchased a bag of skittles, but I am going to as soon as possible. It made me smile to read the happy stories about skittles that people posted on facebook. One of my favorites is, “My neighbour hated 5 choco flavour skittles so much, she gave an me an unopened bag of them which I took to work. mmm…I hated them too, but they grew on me. Now I have skittle bloat.” I got to thinking about my own skittles story. To me, skittles means love. My first love and I fell in love over a bag of skittles. Thanks for making me think about skittles. I’m going to purchase a bag now and fall in love all over again.
[...] sites have already covered the chaos of course (The Wall Street Journal, Techcrunch, Mashable, and others), but there’s a small twist to this blog post. I’d like to contrast what Skittles is [...]