Skittles New Home Page

There has been a lot of buzz around the Skittles campaign that started on Feb 27th.  Basically, Skittles replaced their home page with a navigation unit that links visitors to user generated content that includes the word “Skittles” on Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.  Fans of Skittles can visit the Skittles home page to see what the Soc Net universe is saying about Skittles.

The initial response to this campaign was a huge spike in traffic — Hitwise reports a 1332% increase in web visitors on March 3rd.  But the novality seems to have worn off.  Searched for the keyword “Skittles” spiked for a day then started to come back down to their average numbers.

Searches for "Skittles" over the last 12 months

The genius of this campaign is that people will now go out of their way to write something on these SocNet sites about Skittles.  Then they will go to the Skittles home page to see if what they wrote shows up.  This is GENIUS!!! They made a campaign that turns their fans into self-fulfilling celebrities for 5 seconds.  Let that sink in — if you can figure out how to do that you’ve got a successful campaign.

Thoughts:

• Skittles insights that drove this campaign must have included that their core consumer is heavily engaged in Social Networking.  That 18 to 25 target is my guess.  This doesn’t work for kids.
• They took a very bold position here — they gave their home page over to the people.  Not just fans but to anyone that posts anything about Skittles.  For better or worse.  For instance, there was a post the “Skittles causes cancer” that showed up on the Skittles home page.  For all those companies out there scared to death of what people will say about their brand take note — user generated content is not to be taken that seriously.
• The big take away is that this campaign creates a platform for fans of the brand to broadcast their fandom to each other.  In such away that makes the fan feel that they have tapped into an audience — making them a micro-celebrity for the second their post is on top of the Skittles page.
• This campaign is also a great example of the expected longevity of SocNet campaigns.  The nature of this space is that it moves fast — don’t expect these types of things to be sustainable.

Facebook Notes Growth

Have a look at these data points posted by Compete.com (link) on Facebook’s pop in traffic to their Notes featured from the hugely popular “25 Things About Me” phenomenon.  The “25 things” concept is that you post a note in your Facebook Notes application that lists 25 things your friends may not know about you then broadcast the list to all your friends.

It all started a couple months ago — but no one ones who and how it got started!  That’s the best part — this is a completely viral phenomenon.  I’m sure Facebook could back track to the first person that posted the “25 Things” list and find the originator.  I would not be surprised the learn that Facebook created this thing themselves.  But regardless of how it got started there is some great learning for Social Network marketers:

Thoughts:

• When creating a viral campaign dig deep to find something that is very very relevant to the participant.  25 Things worked because most people like to talk about themselves and most people like to learn things about their friends they may not know.
• Viral campaigns work best when their is a high degree of “Desire to Pass Along”.  Facebook makes it easy for people to pass stuff along — the challenge of the SocNet marketer is to prompt that engine.

Wow!  You’ve got to check out what Graco is doing online.  Graco’s robust Social Networking presence is a great example of how businesses, especially businesses in highly regulated industries, can effectively surround their audience with a consistent online message.  What I really like is the consistency of their message.  They are amplifying their “Ready for the Road Ahead” campaign throughout.

Check out this post from Ignite Social Media (link).  And the following slide show from the Blog Council (Link).

Graco Blog:  http://blog.gracobaby.com/

Graco on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ReadyForTheRoadAhead

Graco on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gracogettogethers/

Graco on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GracoBaby

It’s interesting that Graco has no Facebook presence yet.  I would have thought this was a natural for them.

There are a lot of great insights here on how major brands can embrace Social Networking in a meaningful way that engages their target consumers.  We’ll keep an eye on Graco and see how they develop these strategies moving forward.

Dove Micro Site on MSN

Dove is soap.  Or is it?  Dove is an expression of self esteem.  Is it?  Dove would like you to think so.  Have a look at this very well produced micro-site (link here).

Dove has used the Internet to create a brand position in a way no other medium would allow.  Consumers of Dove can delve pretty deep into their concept of beauty and self-esteem.  Forums, expert Blogs, Widgets, and other tools provide Dove’s consumers with a way to interact with the brand that truly connects the consumer with the position.

If you think your products transcend the product benefit/need fulfillment and can connect to the consumer on an emotional level — or if your product is a commodity like soap and you need to create an emotional connection as a differenciator nothing beats the web to offer a robust engagement.  Have a look at the Dove site and get a feel — they are not selling Soap.  They are selling self-esteem and using the web do to is very effectively.

Mountain Dew Volt Micro Site

This is a very robust online campaign for Mountain Dew Voltage.  Check out all the details at ClickZ (link here).

A couple highlights:

• Visitors got to contribute with the making of this new product by voting on flavor, packaging, ect.
• The campaign leveraged advergaming, Facebook ap, mobile, banner, email — just about everything to surround the consumer.
• The micro-site is built on and in conjunction with Yahoo.  This is an interesting way to tap into the built in audience on Yahoo.
• The campaign uses a point system to reward it’s consumers with contests and prizes.  The more the consumer is engaged with the brand the more points. More points equal more rewards.  This is advergaming PLUS continuity

The soda companies are always a bit ahead of the rest of the pack in innovating marketing.  This campaign is a good example of leveraging just about every online stratgey available.  I’ll keep an eye out for any results data.