The campaign’s relative merits are still being debated online thus adding to its success in generating more attention than a traditional microsite focused campaign could do on a similar budget. In effect, it made us look, now what?

Despite these failings Skittles can still be seen as an important step forward by a big FMCG brand in its use of interactive marketing. Skittles recognised that there is an internet beyond the “marketing web”, where real people exist outside of brand control. There are platforms being used by real people that are “their territory” and they are far better than any “walled garden” faux-social network that most brands could afford to build.

It is fragmented campaigns like Skittles that offer an effective and more interesting future for interactive marketing – campaigns that reflect what people are doing in the real world and the digital world.

Real people’s identities are scattered across services, sites and functions on the internet and digitally enabled devices. As new tools, trends and fads have developed so has the multitude of places where elements of our identity can be accessed. We have become the “fragments shored against [our] ruin”, the comments we have made, the transactions we have completed and the user accounts we have collected or even forgotten that we had. As UnHub, a consumer service inspired by the Skittles campaign which will let you create your own personal Skittles-type experience, puts it: You are Everywhere.

Advertising or “branding” can be a tough thing to justify to your
average C-level guy. So, one of the ways I explain it is, having a
good brand requires you to do less busy work. You spend less time and
money trying to convince a person to buy whatever it is you’re
selling. What most execs don’t see is just how damn hard it is to get
to that point. They see the evangelism of companies with tremendous
brand equity and forget about the discipline required to achieve the
same things. And these days, the path isn’t clear at all. You can’t
follow a formula or stick to a routine. You’re hosed if you do that.

By virtue of the fact that skittles is DOING this, and
being that mobile and that nimble? Goes a long way for them. My personal reaction isn’t that important here. I loved what you said about how skittles knows they can’t control their brand–this hits at something else I wonder about constantly: ownership and how it’s increasingly difficult to own things. Whenever I see someone tightening their grip on some “precious” commodity, I’m like, “dude, let it go. You’re wearing yourself out on something you can’t possibly hold onto.” Reversing course on that line of thinking will require a lot of effort, but it’s necessary.

Bottom line is…we’re lucky to be working in such a fascinating, challenging time.

I’ve spent the good portion of my recent career working on brands like Guinness, Coca-Cola, vitaminwater, Slim Jim, Burn, Fanta, PowerAde, Mentos, Wrigley, etc…

Seemingly all things you’d never imagine people talking about, but amazingly they are. They’re mentioning it in passing and sometimes as the focus of conversations in all kinds of places across the web. You’d be truly suprised.

The Skittles.com site isn’t a campaign for me. It’s not about getting people talking. (Although it has in our marketing community without a doubt.) Skittles.com is a brand site. The campaigns that skittles.com does through out the year should be what generate buzz and when they do create buzz that buzz will be captured and shared at the main brand site.

Check out their fan site on Facebook. They didn’t get over half a million fans after this site was created. They existed long before (which probably caused their enthusiasm in this idea).

I don’t think anyone is expecting skittles magazine to come out anytime soon dedicated to fanaticism about the product, but the reality is skittles amuse people enough everyday to cause them to talk about it even what might be viewed as inane ways. Trust me, I’ve seen it about far more meaningless and less inspiring products.

This site, used properly, in conjunction with great campaign work will be a big hit for them.

Feel free to email me or call me anytime. I’m happy to talk about it at length.

Thanks for having a strong opinion – I can never fault you for that!

-Freddie

Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean that you should. Good things happen organically…and this feels utterly contrived.