A fellow SEO, ciaranj tweeted that it was the 'emperors new clothes 2.0' which i thought was an excellent summary. Some agency had literally gone and sold Mars Corp an invisible website with a figleaf for a navbar.
I got my print screen trigger finger ready to capture every perversion, oversight and PR disaster i could find. Boy oh boy, i was going to have some real juice for my bosses about how NOT to do social media. The obscene title of this post was, at the very least, intended to get a screen grab of demonstrable filthy brand soiling and specifically inspired by silver-tongued moblogger richtard's tweet to subvert Skittles.com's risky manoeuvre. (...btw i really dont think of myself as an expert on this topic; perhaps the one eyed man in the land of the blind- but often those who shout loudest, win...)
Except i couldn't find anything really worth frothing about. The brains behind the execution seem to have hit every possible 2.0 marketing goal and corresponding buzz word.
"Join the conversation" - In an interwoven, permanently on, global communication network, brands are just a global conversation. Rather than worry about or censor what people are saying brands need only turn their ear towards it and connect it all together (that's the theory anyway). Mars Corp just went ahead and turned their corporate website into what any investor really needs to know- what does the market think of skittles - now they pretty much have that answer on tap.
"User generated content" - Every tweet including the word 'skittles' updates their homepage. That's a pretty simple content strategy! What is more i just talked about skittles again for the first time in 20 years.
"12 seconds of fame" - When the barrier to engagement is so low (i.e. post a tweet) the payoff is suprisingly high. You get the 'entire world' looking at you for 12 seconds. This is great for bloggers wanting to raise the profile (clearly i am on this bandwagon) or even just get more adsense revenue. OMG It's like a reverse digg or something :)
"Search Engine Friendly" - With blogs and twits going crazy about Skittles, it's pushing more content into Google and more links back to skittles.com. Ok so there is no site to optmise now, but who cares? Just point the domain at something else when ready.
"Be respectful of users" - They even have a notice that tells them how to escape the skittles site for confused users. Like, how nice & respectful is that?
However those things alone dont make the site totally groundbreaking - it's the corporate headshift it seems to demonstrate. Forget brand protection and 'control'. Invite engagement and dialogue.
The heads of state executed a corporate site strategy that answers the question for any potential investor - what do people think of skittles?
Some people may huff and puff about the PR disaster waiting to happen (from giving any user screen estate) or how nothing can be sold via twitter but marketing strategies are rarely aimed only at their 'actual' customer - often they are big shows and stories to bring in clients, partners & investors. Mars corp isn't selling sweets to little kids. Shopkeepers are. Mars' goal is actually to lower the cost of shelf space- their target market and undisclosed goal is shopkeepers choosing to stock skittles.
It's so effective. I would imagine most corporate bods & shopkeepers don't even have the time to find out anyway - but I think they know what a tweet every three seconds means.
8 comments:
I must admit, I've not heard or seen any word about the Skittles palava (even though I'm fairly stuck on twitter... I guess I'm just not following Skittles fans!)
From your description though, it does sound like a diaster, but not because they did anything wrong. It sounds like a disaster specifically because they did nothing wrong in fact... or at least, because they took no risks.
The path of being remarkable is inherently risky, but it's the only sensible one for brands now. The path of safety and blandness just doesn't cut it.
You're right about 'being remarkable' but maybe i didn't make it clear enough. (actually noticed a typo & corrected)
Skittles took a HUGE risk:
1. They essentially gave up their entire brand to a twitter stream that could say whatever it liked about their product!
2. They also used the power of their own brand name to give total strangers screen time.
3. They bet on a search engine which was something other than Google.
4. For all intents and purposes they totally abandoned a corporate (and therefore sanitised) message.
For most corporates all of this (apart from point 3) is unthinkable!
Incidentally this post was inspired by Rich's tweet
Added rich's tweet to post body and edited that paragraph for clarity on risk etc - cheers for the on and off blog feedback ppl!
Sounds like Mars corporate has been buying up copies of Purple Cow.
FMCG marketing is rocket science IMHO. None of my rules of thumb make sense for a brand like Skittles. Really interested to see what data comes out.
It was a genius play, excellent execution and simple idea whilst being totally groundbreaking. Itll win a bunch of awards and rightly so IMO.
Yeah I wanted to hate it initially. Still think its responsible for crushing the tweetservers yesterday. However as you said it "hit every possible 2.0 marketing goal".
Suck it up and taste the rainbow people.
Nice work JC.
Thanks for the comments guys.
Totally agreed about FMCG being rocket science! I would be surprised if it wins an award tho - do you think it's gonna stay that way? I'm half expecting a second phase where they start communicating back - but have no idea what that'll look like.
And on the subject of rainbows, and reflecting on them, what better than to end on the best skittles video
Post a Comment