Skittles homepage IS the conversation
Simple, effective, engaging and a very smart idea. The Skittles homepage is now a simple display of Twitter search results for the keyword “Skittles.” Love it:
Simple, effective, engaging and a very smart idea. The Skittles homepage is now a simple display of Twitter search results for the keyword “Skittles.” Love it:
We’ve been talking about this around the office, and we’ve concluded that it’s an epic failure. The measure of success for engaging in social media is simple:
1) Will I sell more product?
2) Am I genuinely engaging in a conversation?
3) Did I keep it from smelling like advertising?
This will generate a lot of buzz for now, but a week from now, no one will care. When you break out of the tech bubble, you start to realize that most people don’t even know what Twitter is.
Thanks Jeff for the comment. You’re skepticism on this is definitely a healthy thing, but I think you’re looking at a few things in the wrong way.
“1. Will I sell more product?”
Remember that this is a homepage execution, not a direct-response campaign. As such, the goal (I imagine, I don’t have first-hand knowledge) is a brand-building one. Brand-building and brand affinity activities like this are not tied directly to sales, though they are crucial pieces of an overall marketing strategy. A better question would be, “Will my brand experience a lift?” A lift in brand affinity will always result in a lift in sales numbers. Proving this is the realm of people much smarter than me, but it’s a conversation as old as marketing itself.
“2) Am I genuinely engaging in a conversation?”
Granted, there was plenty of byproduct on this with jokers spamming the convo and folks like us going on and on about social media and marketing, but I think people certainly engaged in actual conversation about Skittles. Look back at a Twitter search on Skittles and you’ll find plenty of people offering anecdotes about their bag of Skittles, how much they like or dislike the brand, offering ideas for new flavors, etc, etc. That’s a genuine conversation.
“3) Did I keep it from smelling like advertising?”
Two things on this:
First, remember that this is a brand homepage. As such, it should feel like a branded environment. If it didn’t, something would definitely be amiss. Second, I would argue that this feels far less like advertising than the vast majority of homepages out there. The homepage is an unedited stream of conversation about their brand and product with a very small branded footprint in the upper left corner. As far as I’m concerned that shows a considerable restraint from the brand manager.
“This will generate a lot of buzz for now, but a week from now, no one will care. When you break out of the tech bubble, you start to realize that most people don’t even know what Twitter is.”
It may turn out that this particular execution is a quick hit and will fade. In fact, it’s a probability. But we’re in the early stages of a new channel and everything right now is experimental. I, for one, applaud brands for pushing boundaries and breaking new ground. And yes, Twitter is still the domain of the digerati but, I’d argue, not for long. To call this an “epic fail” I think is going overboard even judged in the harshest of terms. Note that this would be a VERY low cost program with the potential for a VERY high return. The ROI on this is off the charts from a social media perspective. When the interest in this has faded, they simply switch the homepage back to their old one. But the brand affinity associated with this campaign will live on.