New Skittles Website: Taste the rainbow. And again, and again.

| Mar 20, 2010 | Business | 10 comments

Co-written with McKenzie Lawton.

Recently, Skittles launched a new website. The re-design involves a social media savvy effort and a repetitive scroll down button. It has multiple video and animated gifs that are photoshopped to have different colored skittles in them. All the images can only be described as “trippy”. One photo has an altered photo of a politician with glowing skittles for eyes titled “Vote Bo W. Rain for Comptroller”. Another is a gif that endlessly zooms into a man’s rainbow colored tropical Tommy Bahama’s shirt that’s called “Dunk Tropically, Eternally”. After scrolling down for a good 3-4 minutes, the colors repeat with similar content.

Their Twitter page as of now has 873 followers, but they are not following anyone. Their social media is not very social. Also, out of all their tweets, only a handful are @replies to engaged followers. Not a very colorful strategy if you ask me. Needless to say, their attempt at a social media effort is at a bare minimum. With both a Facebook fan page and a Twitter page it would be a lie to say they had none, but overall, without proper communication and interaction, this brand here deserves a C+ for effort and a D for execution.

McKenzie Lawton says:

I believe websites should be clear, to the point and a place for consumers to interact with and learn about a brand, product, company or each other. In my opinion, the new Skittles redesign does none of this. It’s a never-ending flow of “the rainbow” with commentary, pictures and video that just don’t make sense. Why do I need to see two sumo wrestlers depict the number of fans and followers Skittles has on Facebook and Twitter respectively? I don’t. Do I need to see a sad astronaut clown? No. None of the things on the website actually reflect back upon the Skittles brand, unless they want to be associated with people playing sports on giant pigeons with Skittles. Can someone please tell me what this website is supposed to be about?! Yes, I understand there is a viral aspect in the hopes of gaining social media attention to the brand, but does it need to be this way? I think not. In the end, the Skittles website redesign is obnoxious and annoying.
Photo Credit: 4444

Melanie Wong Melanie Wong is the Managing Editor for the Brands section. A senior at Emerson College in hopes of a B.S. in Marketing Communications: Advertising and Public Relations. She also carries a Entrepreneurship minor. Melanie is in the process of developing a business plan for a Social Media Consulting Agency based in San Francisco hoping to package social media to small local businesses. She loves writing about technology (avid WoW player and Xbox 360 devotee), social media, hot trends and cute things (see blog). Her favorite blogs include Mashable, Copyranter, and TheDieline.com. Twitter: @melanieswong

View all posts by Melanie Wong

10 Responses to “New Skittles Website: Taste the rainbow. And again, and again.”

  2. Lauren Schumacher

    Skittles is one of those brands that's so prevalent that it sells itself, and new customers are extremely easily acquired. If their website was “clear, to the point, and a place for consumers to interacted with and learn about a product” then they'd have nothing to say worth writing about on a blog such as this.

    They're branding themselves as the twee candy, which I suspect will reap results in the future. Remember what ET did for Reese's Pieces?

    Reply
  3. kate

    I think that the website is actually good for appealing to teenyboppers and children. It is weird and playful. Now, I don't think it will do a jot for their parents. The website is about fun and random. If it were actually about Skittles, I doubt it would lead to any sales. After all, most yummy things look very bad being made.

    As for their socialness, yes, that is not very social at all. Even if Skittles sells itself, there is a low switching cost for consumers. One day Skittles, the next M&Ms. If they were more social they would stand a better chance of gaining some sort of loyalty.

    Reply
  4. Christine

    I actually love the new Skittles site. Everyone already knows what Skittles are, so the site doesn't really need to be informative. I think the site is hilarious. I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I love the bizarre, quirky humor it has.

    The main flaw, as with the rest of its social properties apparently, is the lack of interactivity. Sure, consumers can click a share button or watch a video, but there's no opportunity for a dialogue.

    What's especially frustrating is that this type of humor would appeal to the residents of sites like 4chan… this site would be so meme-worthy if they did something like let you post your interpretation of The Rainbow. Imagine the ridiculousness the Internet could provide if they were inspired by a site like this!

    Reply
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    Brazen Careerist is an online community and career center for Generation Y — young professionals who want to define their careers using the …

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  7. Alyce

    My skittle has a heart. Yes a heart shaped skittle in my bag of delightful tasting candy.

    Reply

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