Skittles – Taste the Failure
So, the past few days, a ton of digital ink has been dedicated to the pros and cons of Skittle’s new site. I’m going to preface this post by saying that I’m in the camp that sees this initiative as an epic FAIL, because I think strategically it’s entirely off. Today though, I’m only going to raise one issue with this site, as I haven’t seen it addressed elsewhere yet (although I’m gonna bet it has been addressed somewhere out there in the blogosphere so please don’t send me links).
In one sarcastic nutshell: Who was the target market for this “re-design”? The Skittles Marketing Execs and Agency.com (the agency behind this initiative), or the Skittles consumer?
Now, admittedly, I’m assuming that I know the main goal of Skittle’s brand hub (at least according to the brief): to sell candy (eventually). I could be wrong, it’s an assumption made from the outside looking in. If Skittles told Agency.com that the main goal of this site was to boost morale for the folks working at Skittles, or to elicit debate/conversation/buzz in the advertising community, then please disregard this entire post.
In theory though, the brand hub should be for the consumer. It should be a resource about the brand. There to educate, engage, entertain, and ultimately drive sales. But, no matter why you are on the site, it should be easy to navigate for anyone and everyone. Now, according to Quantcast 57% of the sites visitors are female, and nearly 1/3rd of those visitors are over the age of 35 (an additional 27% are 18 – 34). Do you think a busy working Mom wants to putz around with this UI? Do you think that the “average” consumer will “get it” (remember, not everyone is an early adopter) or take the time to “learn it”? Okay okay, so maybe you’re saying “they’re selling candy. It’s for kids, this site is cool and fun”. And you’re right, 42% of visitors to Skittles.com are 17 or under. Two problems though, kids aren’t on Twitter yet (http://www.ypulse.com/why-teens-havent-embraced-twitteryet/) so this won’t come off as cool/hip to them, that’s one problem. And the second is that by ceding control of the content on their site, parents can no longer feel okay with letting their young children go to the Skittles site. If I tweet “Skittles lovers are a bunch of F*&king W%$res”. This is going to show up on their site. Do you want a six year old sitting on your lap reading that? Do you want a six year old driven to YouTube so they can surf around and find some soft core porn? I’m gonna guess that the answer to both of those is “no”…
In my opinion, at some point, it’s the agency’s responsibility to tell the client “consumers just don’t love your brand that much, this is not the most strategic use of your budget” and if you’re really honest, “the UI of this experience will most likely confuse and alienate a significant portion of your site’s demo.”
Seriously, look the client in the eye and ask them this: “If this was about Clorox Bleach, would you truly care about their Twitter Stream? Would you want to be driven to YouTube to watch their commercials” No? Well, I don’t think anyone here is surprised by that. I mean, I grew up in the 80s & 90s. Michael Jordan was my hero and Nike was/is my favorite brand. I love that brand, but I don’t give a crap about their Twitter stream. How often do you use Twitter Search to look up what people are saying about your favorite brands just “because” (please exclude your clients from that list)? Oh, and finally, while I’m in the midst of a Sam Kinison-esque rant: why can’t I buy any candy from the Skittles site? No e-commerce? It’s 2009, Amazon is turning 15 years old…
That’s all I’ve got for now, let me know your thoughts. Or if you want to discuss it further you can find me at:
@Jack2point0
