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  • Skittles…This is what I want you to do!

    Posted on March 10th, 2009 by Geno and currently 11 commenting.

    When my daughter was younger one of her favorite movies was : “Master of Disguise” starring Dana Carvey as Pistachio Disguisey. I thought the movie was silly but that was exactly why she liked it.

    One of the memorable parts of the movie came back to me as I followed the Skittles trail on twitter last week.

    Pistachio Disguisey: [Making talking gesture with hand] This is what you’re doing…
    [Closes hand] Pistachio Disguisey: this is what I want you to do.
    Devlin Bowman: Did you just tell me to shut up?
    Pistachio Disguisey: Yes.

    I might be in the minority here but I wish I could have told Skittles to shut up and listen. I love the fact that a big brand like Mars invested in social-media but where did it take them, and where did it take us the practitioners of word of mouth marketing. Judging by the update by Jackie Huba on the Church of the Customer blog and the poll most people have moved on. Leaving me to ask will Skittles have another opportunity to engage in real, honest conversations with Skittle fans?

    Let me quote Dave Balter of BzzAgent who was one of the first folks to define in 2004 what where talking about today. “Buzz Marketing is an event or activity that generates publicity, excitement, and information to the consumer. If buzz is done right, people will write about it, so it essentially becomes a great PR vehicle.”

    Skittles proved that you can generate a lot of BUZZ in the social media space; time will tell if this was just a one-dimensional short-term attempt to cause chatter. Don’t get me wrong, I think buzz has it’s place but as Jacke Huba said does it humanize the brand? And I really have to ask does “buzz only” tactics defeat the ability to build conversations that will create loyalty in these current times?

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  • http://orangejack.com Rob Williams

    I’m not sure that a “buzz only” tactic necessarily defeats the ability to have conversations. Now, I don’t care for what Skittles did. I admire that they gave something like that a bold try. I would have done it differently but I admire someone who decided to go all in and over the top for attention. Of course it was a ploy and did create the buzz. But I don’t think it necessarily excludes the ability to have conversations. It could have, quite possibly, got the attention of some Skittles fans. The message to them might have been “we’re here and want to take a new step”. Where we’ll find out is in the ‘what happens next’? Have they positioned themselves so they can listen and have the conversations? If it takes a huge buzz to get the attention of folks that otherwise may have never noticed, then perhaps it pays off.

  • http://brainsonfire.com Geno

    Buzz can be quite the drug… like bees that get excited about the location of a new hive. Skittles and Agency.com gave the SM community a lot to talk about. I would have loved to see all that energy lead to building something other than short-term buzz. Rob we are seeing consumers change buying habits like never before… we all need a little fun and sunshine. And I’m not trying to be a buzz killer.

    I’m just saying… can’t wait to see if there is a bigger plan.

  • http://www.800ceoread.com Jon

    Seth Godin posted today on the difference between publicity and PR:
    http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/the-difference-between-pr-and-publicity.html

    Not sure what I could add to this, but it seems we’re all on the same page here. The issue that Skittles are facing now is how to turn that publicity, or buzz, into PR, or a movement. Seems ripe for BoF to step in.

  • http://brainsonfire.com Geno

    Jon, your right on how to take the steps to a movement. IMO, and I say it with some experience… it takes a far amount of finesse and transparency that starts from the beginning. To Rob’s point buzz doesn’t kill conversation, but it doesn’t make all that noise a real conversation either.

    So, now what do you do… just talking about skittles as a product might be a dead end to create a movement. Why do skittle fans care? Maybe my daughter learned to count using Skittles, who knows what richness those little skittles provide in people’s lives… that is something that would be exciting to learn.

  • http://amaute.wordpress.com/ Alyssa Maute

    I also agree that the Skittles website generated a lot of buzz. I didn’t understand at first why everyone was so mad at Skittles. After talking about it in our PR class (@prprof_mv) I realized that many PR people were mad because Skittles didn’t attempt to converse with consumers through social media. Instead they used content generated by others and simply posted it. I do think that Skittles took a risk by doing this. The content showed good and bad things about Skittles. They really put the brand in the hands of its consumers. Hopefully Skittles will take this opportunity further engage with its consumers.

  • http://www.churchofthecustomer.com Jackie Huba

    Geno,
    I’m ok with buzz as long as there is a strategic reason for doing a stunt. For Skittles, there was really no payoff. Here are some reasons that they could have had do a PR stunt:

    * promote a new flavor
    * promote a new package
    * promote a new product extension
    * get more people to subscribe to their Facebook page (for later communication)
    * get people to join their fan club

    But they didn’t have any goals. The Twitter stunt was to get buzz for buzz sake. And that is just a waste of time and effort.

  • http://brainsonfire.com Geno

    Jackie, I’m in total agreement… what did people discover about skittles from all that buzz? I’m afraid it was a lost opportunity.

  • http://orangejack.com Rob Williams

    I wonder if the real question here is “what did they intend to accomplish?” The problem is not that we don’t know, but we don’t know if THEY know. What if it were a test to see what happens — a learning experience for them? Ultimately I guess it’s not for us to determine if it was a waste of time for them since we don’t know what or IF they learned anything. That is the value opportunity Skittles has and I hope they will let us know what they discovered. They would do well to share their lessons (and their skittles!)

    Our value opportunity is to take a look at it from our perspective and think through what parameters we’d use.

  • brian austin

    there’s a dead giveaway in Buzz Marketing’s conceit – “If buzz is done right, people will write about it, so it essentially becomes a great PR vehicle.” at the risk of bringing up my (soft) Marxist economics – in whose interest is buzz marketing? if at the end of the day successive buzz is essentially a PR vehicle, then it’s just all about the company. when its all about the company and what it wants/needs then there’s precious little for the audience. Wiser marketers know that in commerce, like most relationships, you’ve got to give as well as get. Now, where’s that old Gang of 4 album?

  • http://brainsonfire.com Geno

    Brian, thanks for commenting. Brilliant!

    Come visit.

  • http://plantingseeds.ca Mark Goren

    Hey, Geno:

    You may be interested in this, a 30-day look at how Skittles-related buzz has been trending on Twitter: http://bit.ly/8deEB

    As you can imagine, a week later, it’s pretty much a flatline. Good or bad? Depends on what their objectives were, I guess.