Skittles are, for the uneducated among you, an awesome and colourful M&M kind of candy treats. Apparently they are also the source of all things evil. Nothing special about that, really. They are delicious candy, and they sure have been around for a long time. So what’s so special about them?
Today, the Skittles company completely revamped their online strategy. And they went the cheap route. Not the crappy cheap route mind you, but the kind which makes you sweat and cringe for not having thought about it before. If you visit www.skittles.com, all you’re going to find is a small Flash-enabled widget (they could’ve used Javascript, I know) on the top-left corner.
Behind this widget lives a Twitter page displaying the results of a search for the term “Skittles”. Sort of cool, but the product pages must be normal, right? Should you choose a product from the dropdown, the background will change to a Wikipedia entry about Skittles. The “Media” links make use of a Youtube channel for showing videos and a Flickr stream for photos. The “Friends” link, as you might’ve guessed by now, simply shows you a Facebook group about Skittles. Say what you say, this strategy is deviously simple and a very weird and bold move for such a company.
By doing this, the company is handing over the metaphorical ball back to the consumer. “Hey, people who eat Skittles”, they’re effectively saying: “Could you please create our whole site content, brand-awareness and Internet marketing strategy? Oh, and do it for free?” Never has a company allowed (and actually demanded) such a degree of interaction with it’s customers. It’s an experience apparently devoid of design which was however cleverly engineered: it’s designed to make the consumer the center of the brand, and that’s how it should be.
No matter how clever and delightful this approach might be, it’s certainly not without its perils, and I’m sure the smart people behind this stunt are no strangers to them. Just one slight modification to the Wikipedia page could turn off a number of individuals from ever buying Skittles again. All I can say is that for now, it’s working. I’ll be sure to buy a packet of Skittles the next time I come across one.
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