NilPerOs

Skittles.com made a very interesting decision a couple of days ago. I haven’t yet decided if it was the best idea ever, but they certainly deserve credit for trying. It’s a brave move, and the obvious risks came to the forefront yesterday, but they seem to be sticking with it. So what did they do that was so different?

Well, they effectively dumped their website. Commercial suicide in an environment where we are constantly being told that digital media is more important than ever? OK, they didn’t quite dump it. The URL still exists, but it does something quite unusual now. This little widget now appears in the top left hand corner of your browser…

When this first appeared on Wednesday it was floating above a twitter feed that was filtering all tweets with the word ‘Skittles’ in them. You can now view this feed under the CHATTER tab, but it’s no longer the landing page. Yesterday the landing page was a Facebook fan site, now viewable under the FRIENDS tab (almost 600,000 fans and counting). Today the opening page is the Wikipedia definition of skittles. And if you hit the PRODUCTS tab? More Wikipedia definitions. The MEDIA tab? Well, if you pick video, straight to the YouTube channel, and pictures goes straight to a Flickr account. You’re getting the picture by now. In fact, in so far as I can tell, the only remnant of the previous website lies in the CONTACT tab, which still produces a little original HTML page.

When this first launched it was met with a little resistance in the twitter community. There was a rash of pornographic links and abusive messages tweeted with the ‘#skittles’ hashtag (and thus showing up in their chatter feed). Perhaps that’s why it was quickly changed to the Facebook fan site for the landing page. I’m sure something similar would have been behind the motivation for making the Wikipedia definition as the now new landing page. Then again, one could say that it was a predictable response from twitter, and one that got them plenty of media attention. That certainly seems to be the view of Brand Republic.

There’s some important things to take away from all this.

• Skittles effectively have no specific home page, instead relying on existing and popular social media sites to represent their image on the internet
• They have chosen not to censor any user generated comment or remark about their products, taking the good with the bad
• In the words of Nick McGivney (my favorite blogger on all such matters) ‘They’ve put themselves in a very interesting place: totally visible at the centre of a very public web of communications’

I suppose only time will tell if this pays off, but I think it’s a really ballsy move. A quick look at the chatter reveals that the abuse has subsided and has been replaced with something I’m sure the people at Masterfoods are a lot happier to see, mainly admiration for what they have done.

Actually, I’ve made up my mind. This is the best idea ever. Unless of course it doesn’t work, in which case, I told you so. Meh… let’s see what happens.