#skittles: Taste the Twitter

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Bravo Skittles for doing what other brands are scared to do. This is how you do web 2.0. Skittles have replaced their website with a Twitter stream. Genius. The only additional content is a navigational tool-bar, taking you to? You guessed it - YouTube and Flickr.

This is one brand taking a full grasp of the power and potential of advertising through social media. If more brands follow, will it be to the same affect? It seems playing the social media card is all about being the first in line.

Lets go deeper.
So, in what’s being described as everything from brilliant to idiotic, bold to ridiculous and a logistical nightmare to a goldmine, Skittles moved its ‘usual’ website information into a 3 x 3″ floating box and has made its entire site a Twitter search page.

When you go to skittles.com, what you see is a live Twitter search results page - the term being searched, of course, is ’skittles.’ Off to the side, in a bright, red box, you can search into their ‘regular’ site with a seemingly standard navigation…or so you might think.

Their ‘friends’ page takes you to their Facebook page. Their ‘products’ pages go to Wikipedia (which the wiki notes sounds like an ad and not an article). The ‘media’ page, of course, goes to their YouTube channel. And, while the Twitter search page is set up as the ‘home’ page, it serves double-time as their ‘chatter’ page.

I’ve got to say that I’m leaning towards brilliant here. Though I feel terrible for their copywriter - s/he just lost their job. The site will be forever changing and current. It certainly embraces social media. And it has many people talking - and I can’t remember the last time I even thought about Skittles - now they’re everywhere.

Too far over the rainbow?

But, people are wondering it they’ve lost their marbles. Skittles is candy, after all. And they’re marketing is hell-bent on destroying the minds and bodies of children everywhere. So now, if a child goes to the Skittles site, they can see all of the fun that the Twitter community is having by way of posting obnoxious tweets - just to see them appear on the Skittles website.

For instance, someone tweeted recently: Just opened a bag of Skittles and all I found was cat vomit. (or something like that) I’m not thrilled with how some folks are acting - but Skittles has given up anything that even remotely looks like control here…

Perhaps, when the brouhaha dies down, this idea will be a great tool - to show the world what the current Skittles buzz is in real time. It’s like Skittles’ own brand listening page. They sure are diving head first into the transparency pool.

We can’t wait to hear what you think… Make your comment on this.

www.skittles.com

(Source: http://jennyleewilliams.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/skittles-taste-the-twitter-interweb-the-rainbow/)