Our Side Of The Screen: Skittles.com Redesign
Posted by meredith on 02-08-2010
Today’s Youth Advisory Board post comes from Libby Issendorf who lends her media analyst expertise to another installment of Our Side Of The Screen on the recently relaunched Skittles site, a slight departure from the brand’s much buzzed (and panned) social media experiment of last year. Remember, you can communicate directly with any member of the Ypulse Youth Advisory Board by emailing them at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com…or just leave a comment.
Our Side of the Screen: Skittles.com Redesign
What is it: Not quite a year ago, YAB member Caro reviewed the Skittles.com site. “Site” is probably not the correct term—Skittles.com directed you to a widget that allowed you to click through Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube search results for the candy. I called out the site as one of my Worst of 2009 due to Skittles’ lack of involvement in the conversations they served up as search results. Now they have relaunched a slick new site that still strives to become part of the offbeat, random, and yes, viral culture of the Internet, but in a less blatant way.
Where do you come in: I heard about the website through an Adweek article, but Skittles hopes that most teens and twentysomethings will see it in a friend’s Facebook status, tweet, or email. They embed sharing links under each piece of content so I can post to Facebook or Twitter with just one click.
What works: The site is structured to be one endless scroll of content, from an image of a clown in astronaut gear to a fire hydrant wearing a business suit. Think LOLcats meets Buzzfeed or StumbleUpon. All videos are around 10 seconds, and most images and videos make no mention of Skittles. The best parts of the site are the ones that use real-time content, like the running tally of which color is mentioned most frequently on Twitter (purple/grape).
ShareSkittles.com is a microsite launched in conjunction with the new homepage. Its concept is equally simple: two videos paired on the home screen, one of someone giving Skittles and the other of someone else receiving them. I watched several pairs of these and showed them to my fiancé because they’re fun, offbeat, and unexpected. There’s an option to submit your own video, and it would be fun to see how my Skittles handoff turns into a stranger’s Skittles reception. Because it’s entertaining and I could actually picture myself getting involved, I would be much more likely to share this site with friends than the homepage.
Challenges: On Skittles.com, I wanted more interaction. I kept mousing over images and videos hoping to find something to click on. But instead of allowing me to interact, vote a piece of content up or down, or remix it in my own way, Skittles is just serving me a buffet of Internet randomness.
The final verdict: The redesign step in the right direction, but ShareSkittles.com is much more compelling. Skittles could’ve saved a buck and developed just that site to use for the homepage.
About Libby
After growing up on a farm in North Dakota, Libby Issendorf moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. She discovered her passion for brands and media as a member of her school’s first-place National Student Advertising Competition team. After graduation in 2008, she began her career as a media analyst at an ad agency in Minneapolis. Libby now works as a New Media Strategist at an ad agency in Fargo, ND. Outside of work, she loves blogging at Yaybia.com, the Minnesota Twins, being really geeky with her iPhone, and finally living in the same city as her fiance.
Categorized under: Youth Advisory Board, Youth Marketing
March 29th, 2010 at 11:58 am
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