Skittles gets a taste for Twitter
Lolly brand Skittles has achieved a social media triumph this morning through the brave move of handing its home page to Twitter.
Anybody who goes to Skittles.com is redirected to a search feed on use of the word “Skittles” anywhere on Twitter.
It means that any Twitter user who tweets the word Skittles will briefly see their Skittles message on the home page. As a result, about 1% of the messages currently being posted on Twitter globally include a mention of Skittles.
It’s not the first time the brand has tried such experiments. Last week it repointed its home page to its entry on Wikipedia. The strategy is the work of US-based digital outfit agency.com.
The move is already triggering debate on its originality and longevity, along with thoughts on how it could be done better.
Skittles is owned by Mars although the ad spend on the brand in Australia is minimal.
How Skittles chatter has taken off on Twitter:
Linkedin
Thanks for explaining all those skittles Tweets coming through from the Americans this morning … I thought the world had become sugar-obsessed
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I have some ethical reservations about this stunt (and that’s all it is). What Skittles is doing is evading responsibility for anything that is said on what is, after all, its own dot-com.
Second, remember last year when US ad agency Modernista tried a similar redirection stunt and Wikipedia totally slapped them down? Once people get over the novelty of being involuntarily turned into a Skittles ad, I think it’ll start to piss them off. Consider how Facebook and YouTube users have responded to attempts to ‘monetise’ their content.
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If Naked had been behind this stunt this post would have had about 27 comments by now.
Double standards anyone?
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You have a good point on Wikipedia, Mel.
I haven’t been able to get to the whole story because there are conflicting reports, but I get the impression that last week’s brief repointing to Wikipedia by Skittles came to an abrupt end, possibly because Wikipedia locked the page to revisions.
Either way, Skittles’d be wise to make sure this is a quick exercise before people do get tired of it.
And, Stan, another reason there are fewer comments so far, may be because this is a global rather than local tale…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I think its a brave and brilliant strategy. Here’s why:
http://www.digitaltip.com.au/i.....o-skittle/
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Stan, are you going to continue to get even more grumpy the older you get?
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It’s amusing some people are hailing this as brave and amazing/brilliant and ballsy … when there’s zero results to suggest it had any impact on anything.
Cue “Skittles didn’t just throw away the rulebook, they tore it into little pieces” comment. How maverick!