So why does the Skittle social media experiment feel more ‘media’ than ‘social’? It has all the ingredients du jour – FB, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter – yet it still doesn’t live up to the holy grail promise heralded by the pundits of Web 2.0.
Skittles’ association with rainbows is an interesting reference point here. There are two ways to think of rainbows. One is singular. A rainbow is a band with many colors. The second is to realize that a rainbow is a composite of many bands of light, all with their own characteristics.
It is between these two definitions that I see Skittle’s problem. Skittles.com has leveraged all the right technologies but is treating its audience like a singular thing.
The Skittle experience feels monochromatic. There’s no real sense of diversity or even humanity to it. In many ways, its the old ad agency model (‘be really funny and carpet bomb the media’) applied to today’s distribution channels of choice. Like TV, Skittles efforts feel more like a broadcast than a dialogue. The customer doesn’t figure into the equation much deeper than the polarities of comments. (“Skittles rule” and “Skittles suck” to save you all a bunch of time.)
Inherent in the brand is the concept of diversity – in colors, in flavors, even in varieties of Skittles – yet the message of Skittles.com and the assorted Skittles pages on the sites they’ve chosen, is largely generic, Madison Avenue TV fare.
In fact, the whole thing feels almost lazy. Like all they did was slap a (poorly placed and annoying immoveable) sticker over a bunch of sites with a default ‘skittles’ search in place.
Ultimately, Skittles is making a splash, not a connection. And when the splashes’ ripples fade (usually in the shadow of the next confectioner’s attempt to out-funny or out-Facebook their competitor) all that’s left is, well, nothing but a dormant list of 600K+ ‘friends’ and some dusty repurposed TV spots on YouTube.
For my part, if Skittles focused more on the ‘social’ and less on the ‘media’ piece their efforts would bear more (artificially flavored) fruit.
As a brand that could leverage concepts of diversity easily, Skittles could support expressions of art, writing, dance, music, fashion, etc. – through social strategies. I’m not talking about some ‘upload your favorite Skittle rap’ nonsense here. I mean going out into communities and finding and spotlighting diversity as it exists authentically here and now.
There are opportunities of tribalism and competition. There are mixes to be made. Matches to be hatched. Games to be played.
In fact Skittles, more than many confections, is tied to color, which in turn is connected to emotions, personalities, preferences, and entire chapters in psychology tomes.
With all the technological power to narrowslice, create art and build individual connections, why has Skittles opted for a monocrhomatic, Madison Avenue tactic distributed in social media?
Your guess is as good as mine.
