Adding my commentary to many others that have chimed in regarding the skittles.com social media efforts driven by Agency.Com
Pro
- Bravo for the valiant effort; I am sure it took a lot to convince the Skittles brand to “dare to go there”.
- I do believe the concept of a “brand site” versus a distributed presence has a lot of merit; though I will not say I think this is the best execution I have seen on the space.
Not sure:
- Is there such thing as bad publicity? Skittles got a lot of buzz with this effort; and they have surely increased their presence in the mind of many.
Con
- As you may gather from my blog name I believe in Social Media as a relationship channel / opportunity; where is the relationship effort here? Was this a “one night stand?” (I do recognize the Facebook Skittle moderator has been active; but doesn’t seem there is a programmatic effort behind that); who were they targeting and where was this suppose to go? I actually think they missed a great opportunity to use this as a beginning point to engage with, and invite engagement among, skittles fans.
- What were they offering as value? All of this seemed to have been set up to have people reflect on their own comments/content, but: to what effect? There has to be something to be accomplished in an effort like this; even if only entertainment (which I consider highly important) but even that seems to have been missed here; what was the point?
- The user experience itself was very confusing; and demanding a lot from the user (how many normal individuals can be dropped in the Twitter search page and figure out what is happening and what to do next?); once again: who were they targeting? And how do they think this was going to work for that target audience?
What do you think?
Filiberto Selvas
Filiberto.selvas@Gmail.Com
2 comments:
Really like your points here Filiberto and was confused myself as a Skittles fan how this was adding value to my life or my experience with the brand.
Did it make me consider going down to the corner store - maybe? but in the end, what I was left wondering is where is the publishing aspect & mentality that brands need to undertake if they are to enter into the conversation and create an engaging experience? Otherwise, heck, Skittles got lots of mindshare with a target they probably weren't aiming for!
All the best!!
Thanks Jackie
Yes; indeed: where is the "conversation" in this? can't be just enable conversation "among" it also requires conversation with.. and that requires some thinking about what that conversation will be about, who sill take part on it, etc.
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