Skittles Pulls Twitter Campaign
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, March 4, 2009
Skittles' Web site redesign via Twitter put the colorful coated candy in the spotlight, but the company pulled the campaign on Tuesday after pranksters started tweeting profanities that ended up on the company's home page.
The blogosphere started buzzing. Some wondered whether Skittles' marketers had gone too far in turning the brand's Web site into a snapshot of what people were writing about them on Twitter. Most Twitter users did not tweet about grape and lemon flavors, or buying the candy--but rather how Skittles, the Mars candy brand, got consumers talking about the treat.
By Tuesday the conversation soured on Twitter. The buzz quickly degenerated to pranksters writing negative and unrelated comments to fill Skittle's home page. By trusting consumers with content, Skittles opened up the brand to a wrath of backlash by losing control of the conversation.
Brand Keys President Robert Passikoff said the fiasco demonstrates the power of consumers. "If we had any doubt that the consumer is in control, this is the perfect case study that proves it," he said. "It's also additional proof that brands need a resonating authenticity among the community they want to serve."
Passikoff said the campaign also brought to light consumer sentiment about the brand based on freedom of speech on the Internet. "The good news is there is freedom of speech, and the bad news is there is freedom of speech," he said.
This disaster does not demonstrate the power of the consumer. It is in fact an unfortunate and yet very real insight into the low level of intelligence and civility of a relatively insignificant yet "active" segment of the online community. Social media is an opportunity for the inmates to run the asylum and we had better find a way to educate (probably useless) exclude (unlikely) or better manage the dialogue or social media will be marginalized by the idiots who abuse it.
So Twitter was being used for a Text2Screen campaign? Is it approved by carriers for that purpose? There is no profanity monitoring apparently.
They didn't pull the campaign, you can see that the Twitter feed still exists in their navigation at Skittles.com under the chatter tab:
http://skittles.com/chatter.htm. The lively conversation on Skittles and various topics continues on.
Skittles.com is currently directing visitors to their Facebook page where commentary about Skittles and other topics is happening on their wall.
It appears that their plan all along was to focus on social networking -- not just Twitter.
Based on the press, the campaign is a success but we'll have to see their revenue to know for sure. I think it's an exciting break out effort.
you can talk about "the power of the consumer" and any other marketingspeak term you want to use, but the thing is that unmoderated conversation--whether on Twitter or other forums--degenerates into trolls and pranksters. Putting up the Twitter feed was a great way for Skittles and their marketing agency to get on the radar for an "innovative" idea, but over time it didn't show the what the true consumers of their product had to say. I'd be surprised if they see a bump in revenue for this kind of social media campaign.
We know that brands are eager to monetize social networks - it’s just a matter of how. Skittles received a deluge of media and consumer attention yesterday with its relaunched website, but it took less than 2 days for the company to realize that things had gone horribly awry. The problem is that Skittles attempted to enter the social network without really engaging in it. Social media is about dialogue; brands should be looking to JOIN the conversation, not simply display or filter it. www.openamplify.com.
I am impressed by the level of intelligence and marketing based insight(s) provided by the various comments on this article. I am learning more about social marketing from it. And to emphasize my earlier comment point (so as not to be misunderstood), I too believe that any advertiser bears the responsibility of a sound strategy and providing a manager/monitor for their social media activities. But no one should be insulted by an honest and well intentioned commentary on the lack of civility of a small minority that can overwhelm or drown out the dialogue that advertisers would like to have with their consumers and "friends". GREAT COMMENT THREAD!!!