Comments on: PR, Please Think It Through

By: frank

frank — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:06:51 +0000

I love what you have to say here. Thinking it through, having goals/objectives and things you want to measure is important. It doesn’t seem likely that we will ever know what Skittles was shooting for – though it would be VERY cool to see a case study where they really exposed what went on internally and how they came to this decision.

I make a bit of a counter point or maybe even a complementary post because I’m purely coming from the angle that what Skittles did was crazy bold & never been done before (at least i’ve not seen it done).
Skittles and Your Nonprofit

Their campaign may crash and burn, but i give’em credit for going for it – that’s just me

Thanks for the links to the other posts also.

http://twitter.com/franswaa

By: Shonali Burke

Shonali Burke — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:39:05 +0000

Wow – I’m loving the comments! Thank you all for taking the time to share your thoughts. What a great conversation we’re having.

I do think Skittles deserves credit for at least trying to do something new and, like Chuck, I am assuming that some research was done prior to launch, along with setting some goals and measurable objectives – simply because of the scale of what they did.

Giles, I suppose it’s possible that they did put the conversation piece “out there”… but I’m just not sure what the point of doing that was if they planned all along not to participate. Another mystery only Skittles can shed some light on.

Thank you ALL again for taking the time to “chat.” It’s made for a great start to my week!

By: Chuck Hemann

Chuck Hemann — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:48:53 +0000

Shonali – a fantastic post and definitely right on point. I’m not going to pass judgment on what Skittles has done. I found it pretty cheesy, but I am assuming (rightly or wrongly) that a fair bit of research went into that project. Otherwise, why launch it? Just because some of us weren’t fans of the end product doesn’t mean a hill of beans. How would we know if we were the target audience for the campaign? We probably weren’t in fact. What I think would be worth criticizing is if they launched that page just “thinking” it would be a good idea and not knowing whether or not there audience would be receptive to such an approach. If that were the case, you’d have a huge line of people willing to bash them – with me right there with them. Thanks again for the post. excellent read!

By: Ike

Ike — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:39:59 +0000

Shonali, Shannon, Lauren…

I agree, it’s not up to us to judge whether the campaign was a success, because we’re not privy to the metrics.

Let me add something of an aside here.

I merely posited the notion that SocMed and Internet Marketers on Twitter refer to the effort as Sk*ttles. Why? Really, I see it as a favor to those behind the campaign. It gives them a way to weed out the chatter about the brand from the chatter about the buzz.

When I started talking about Sk*ttles, I got several queries from Social Media Marketers who wanted to know “Why I was hatin’ on Skittles?”

I’m not “hatin’” on anything. Then it dawned on me:

There is a class of Social Media Marketer that needs EVERY effort to be a success, because their livelihood depends on promoting Social Media.

Then, I had another epiphany:

There is another class of Social Media Marketer that needs to TEAR DOWN every effort, because they need to differentiate how they could have served clients better.

It made me vomit in my mouth a little bit.

Thank you — ALL THREE OF YOU — for not sitting on either extreme. You give me hope.

By: Lorne Pike

Lorne Pike — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:38:07 +0000

Skittles deserves some credit for sticking their necks into new territory. Willingness to experiment is always high on the list of prerequisites for successful companies. However, willingness to risk without understanding the full range of potential outcomes is about as low on that list as you can go.

Whether or not Skittles actually had a long-term plan in place — and know how to execute it — will probably remain a mystery for most of us for a bit longer yet. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see not only how they take their next steps, but how other corporations will respond to Skittles’ new marketing flavor.