There has been lots of chatter in the last day about Skittles’ new site. In short, Skittles replaced their homepage with a live Twitter feed of anyone talking about Skittles. If their goal was just to get people talking about Skittles, it worked. But I believe they missed an opportunity to deliver more value to their consumers. Sure some PR, advertising, and marketing staff get bragging rights for pulling this off but what did this really do to move the brand or sales forward?
This was a stunt. Nothing more. Nothing less. With a seemingly short shelf life and sloppy planning.
If you’re going to glom onto social media at least offer up a means to talk more, have a real conversation, add some value, or offer a functional application or a utility. But to just attach your brand page to a Twitter feed is an attention-grabbing tactic that has no long-term goal or strategy. It reveals a lazy PR and marketing creative philosophy that lacks respect for the social media space or the brand.
Hey Skittles…Nice try…Come back when you’ve got something really valuable to offer the space and your consumer.
Or at least something as clever as this old commercial:
[Update 3.04.09: Skittles Pulls Twitter Campaign - MediaPost Report]
