Skittles relaunched their website today, amid alot of positive (and negative) feedback.
Their new site, which consists of a Twitter stream, is a bold move into the social media universe. However, this bold move doesn’t come without some big usability mistakes.
The Widget at the top left corner cannot be moved around on the screen, and even in it’s minimized state, it’s still rather large and obtrusive. What we do like though, is the integration of each social network within the site. It’s not necessarily a new idea (Modernista did this not too long ago) but it’s definitely interesting.
Elaine commented “Chatter will all be about the website, but will it sell more candy?”
In the end, that’s what it’s all about.
What are your thoughts? Please feel free to post them up below in the comments section. ↓
TO true users of Twitter this is a cheap stunt. It doesnt have any value, for user of site of for Skittles as a brand. Yes it means that skittles.com gets a lots of traffic and they get a lot of talk but it doesnt actually help them sell candy.
To be honest next time I am at the counter Skittles will be a bit further down my list.
In my opinion, nice try, must work harder to understand what Twitter is really about. Oh heres a clue conversation!
Interesting. I don’t know how much brand loyalty candy companies have, I would tend to think they have very little. Most people buy candy based on impulse. They don’t think about “what are their labour practices like?” or “what is their social media strategy?”. Will this help them sell more candy. It’s possible. Will it help them sell ALOT of candy? Doubtful.
Yes, Twitter is about conversation, I agree with you there. If anything, this will generate ALOT of WOM/buzz, which could drive sales or hurt them. Only time will tell.
my thoughts on the Recession-Web exemplified:
1. Good content, no thanks to skittles
2. If you’re running the flash debugger while you’re on the site you’ll see it’s riddled with errors. No biggie for the avg user but come on.
3. This experiment screams “my agency told me this is what people think is cool.”
Oh well, i looked at it.
Don’t see how the buzz is going to increase candy sales but they are getting a lot of it.
Definitely see Max’s comment “my agency told me this is what people think is cool.” and I am kinda worried what clients are going to say going forward.
Though they got some buzz the next guys that try to copy are going to look really stale.
This isn’t the way to do sustainable social media marketing