Ski-doodle

A lot of "buzz" has been going on about Skittles "homepage redesign"

For those of you who've been spared from the tempest in a teapot, essentially Skittles decided to go all Modernista! (an agency that made Wikipedia their homepage; irked Wikipedia purists and as you can see, became a little too transparent) on us and cede their entire web presence to "the people" by presenting the amorphous "conversation" as their true digital presence.

You'd think I'd be elated with this authentic demonstration of cession of control to the masses. You'd be 100% wrong.

For starters, I don't believe that we had control to start with and even if we did, the worst thing we could do is to give it 100% to consumers...who quite frankly, don't necessarily even want it.

Let's begin with Skittle's first bowl (a bold attempt at getting a strike, but sadly nothing more than a gutterball) which was to overlay their site against Twitter. Exhbit 1 shows that when left to their own devices, the "conversationalists" (as defined as social media insiders, fishbowl dwellers and navel-gazers) are mishevious little imps who are also a little sado-masochistic.

Translation - Skittle's entire web-presence AKA Twitter is skittled with gems like: @qwghlm More like: ARE SKITTLES MAKING PAEDOPHILES OBESE? or Skittles Skittles Skittles Skittles Capitalist Whore Skittles Skittles Skittles Capitalist Whore.

Like the Octo-Mom, very soon the media coverage turned on their once darling and Skittles swapped out Twitter for Facebook before settling it would appear on banal Wikipedia as their final resting place.

Rumor has it that this was always a short-term "campaign" and Skittles always intended to go back to a more traditional destination website presence i.e. revert back to the way things used to be. I find this suspect at best and loathsome at worst: suspect given Agency.com's (the same agency behind Subway's When we Roll...We Roll Big) involvement in this and their subsequent backpeddling from the Subway kerfuffle and loathsome if this entire move was nothing more than a short term attempt (campaign) at seeking "buzz" or "viral" response.

So why am I so irritated about all of this? Honestly, I'm not entirely myself. I think it's because of the ridiculous lack of strategy behind this program. It epitomizes 90% of all the work out there right now, which continuously demonstrates "tactics in search of strategy" and an acute lack of understanding of the real power of conversational marketing.

I could go on for hours about the myriad of holes in this program. Here are a few examples:

• Exactly how many of Skittle's core target audience are actively on Twitter? Even if the attempt is just to reflect the buzz, it's a classic example of the Revenge of Second Life (there I said it)
• A company's digital presence or storefront is arguably more important and inarguably as important as their physical presence. Why on Earth would a brand cede this equity or asset to an emerging, unproven and unstable platform like Twitter or a more stable, yet decentralized environment like Facebook or Wikipedia? This is 100% cart before the horse
• What exactly is the message or idea behind this entire effort? It's not remotely clear what the intent or goal is? From a functional standpoint, the Wikipedia page is your boring "about us" tab, which is one of many tabs on a traditional website. From a form perspective, I still can't possible think of what the takeaway is....do you?

I do want to add that a lot of people have said, "why chastise them for being bold and innovative; taking a risk; experimenting" - indeed, a big part of my and crayon's message is about experimentation. That may be so, but there is a huge difference between experimenting with versus without any structure, cause, process or methodology. Case in point, would you casually experiment by playing with matches, gunpowder and a gas cylinder...I think not.

And so, although most mainstream media outlets have praised these efforts, I am not jumping up and down with the same excitement (an understatement) Perhaps they're all right and I am wrong. All I know is that brands need to be adopting new approaches, technologies, platforms and experimenting accordingly....but NOT at the expense of a smart, integrated and solid strategic foundation.

It's really that simple.

Just to be clear, I'll gladly share sales data and mea culpa if I'm wrong about this and there is success at the cash register. However, I think the end result is another demonstration that short term buzz or viral success is relative when a) it is fleeting and b) it is predominantly negative.

So final result? At best, a "split" in keeping with the Skittles analogy.