Comments on: Skittles Twitter Experiment I Call it a Win for Skittles

By: Paul R

Paul R — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:19:57 +0000

Has there been an audit of how the twitter experiment went? Was it generally positive or were there a few trolls that got involved?

By: Jack Leblond

Jack Leblond — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:03:24 +0000

I agree this was bold, but suspect if they had used the filters they would have been bashed for censoring what the people really had to say.

I also agree they said have participated in the conversation and not just rebroadcast everything everyone else said. Through participation they could have down played or reduced the undesirable messages.

By: Road Rage

Road Rage — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:06:46 +0000

Firstly, the Skittles brand (and a company in the candy industry) has the luxury of such an experiment to this degree. It doesn’t work for brands that need to have a significant focus on maintaining and building credibility.

From a usability perspective it’s a disaster and jolting, though they’re obviously aware of this and are OK with it. After all, “jolting” is consistent with the brand. It feels like a popup window and since it’s not what people are used to, it interrupts the intended search path to a degree (away from Google or other search engine). Personally it’s not what I want when I go to a typical company.com website – though for something like Skittles, it’s fine.

If their goal was to generate buzz about the Skittles brand, then yes this experiment has already been successful.

The REAL measure of success will be the answer to this question:
Did it sell more fruity candy?

By: PerfectMOney Share Idea

PerfectMOney Share Idea — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:29:32 +0000

the page skitless.com redirect me to page wit this warning “Just a heads up: Any stuff beyond the Skittles.com page is actually another site and not in our control. This panel may be hovering over the page, but SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for what other people post and say on these sites. Click the box below to acknowledge that you know SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for that stuff.”the minimize and the close marks is do not works when I hit it ,and really scary the page behind the site is a WIKIPEDIA back ground that tell “the dictionary of skitless I don’t know what there doing here.but if they doing this for SEO project ,I comment,they do a really “bad idea”

By: nana

nana — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:18:34 +0000

thanks

By: jared roy

jared roy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:11:35 +0000

Great idea, missed the due diligence on covering the bases but shows complete transparency.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:23:25 +0000

So it has been a clever move from skittles!
They kicked up a fuss and all publicity whether positive or negative is good for them.
As you noticed David, they are certainly to get huge number of backlinks for free, LoL ))), and even that alone, on my opinon, was worth the move!

By the way, I have read another SEO blog today where the TC was quite excited about twitters as being a great way for both making friends and site promotion, and he urged everyone to share their twitters ID’s right there on the blog!
Oh, My… the rumors spread fast! )

By: Michael Gray

Michael Gray — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:20:41 +0000

I’ve got wp-cache in lockdown mode running (had a nice traffic spike yesterday) there’s a lag time for comments hen you do, not doing the censoring thing, that’s just bad mojo.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:18:30 +0000

Seems the invisible comments turned up when I posted. Never mind.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:18:01 +0000

Hmmm – seem to be a lot less comments here than the email alerts I’m getting would suggest. Anyway, I’ll be quick.

Michael – not everything is about SEO/links (as you well know – else why would you spend so much time on Twitter?) What exactly do they need those links to rank for, their brand name? Pointless stunt maybe? And once this gimmick has fizzled out (give it a week or two) what will they have left for their (I would imagine) pretty big investment? Absolutely nothing.

One of the invisible comments said: “I agree it’s a win – when’s the last time so many people were talking about Skittles? Ever? So what if they had some technology goofs, that doesn’t say anything negative about the quality of their product.”

But that’s exactly it isn’t it? It says nothing about their product, brand or anything else. It’s the equivalent of new for new’s sake. if I take a photo of my foot and put that on the home page of a major brand, would I be lauded? It’d be a world first and would, I’d imagine, generate some ‘conversation’.

It’s like we’ve all turned into magpies, daring brands to pull out something newer & shinier, rather than encouraging them to produce something interesting, entertaining or, God forbid, useful. Pointless doesn’t have to be rubbish: just look at the Cadbury’s Gorilla or the T-Mobile flash-mob dance – neither totally original, but genuinely fun & engaging. This is a triumph of style over substance, except it’s not even all that stylish.

No, this is a FAIL: for Skittles, the marketing industry, and, I’m afraid, all those who stand around and cheer on such inanity.