Choose Your Strategy Carefully

Have you been to the new Skittles “Web site”? Among the many Web sites I’ve seen over time, this is probably one of the worst, and sadly, from a company with quite a healthy advertising and interactive budget who can afford to do it right, but didn’t. If you’re familiar with Modernista, then this should look familiar.

The first issue with their new Web site is in the form of a JavaScript window that forces your “cooperation” with their “Web site” and asks you for your age as a requirement, not an option. The problem with this first road block, besides the fact that it is a road block, is Skittles only allows visitors whom are 12 years of age or older to visit their site. They are alienating a large part of their target audience with this age restriction and bring no value or interest with the content on their site.

If you look back through the history of Skittles.com, you’ll see they have targeted their demographic appropriately. The content they have featured in the past has been fun and perfect for connecting the brand to their target audience. The only thing they’ve done now is to regurgitate social media channels through a series of links and with an iframe and lost that edge, while providing no real content.

As a quick review of their new site, they provide two links to a Twitter search page that filters for the hash of “#skittles” through their home and chatter links in an annoying floating Flash navigation in the upper left of their site. If you’re new to the brand, the first time you’re visiting their site, you could see a plethora of “choice” words on their home page now associated with their brand, even though you “agreed” to their “terms and agreements” which states that they do not control what is being shown.

The next useless thing they’ve done is made their product pages link to a Wikipedia article about their brand and descriptions of their candy. Their media links, videos and pics take you to a YouTube page and Flickr page respectively. Their friends’ link takes you to their Facebook fan page.

Besides the questionable strategy of their new and technically limiting site, it handicaps anyone who visits their site without JavaScript. This questionable and potentially harmful brand experience is riddled with inconsistency. Skittles seems to forget who their target is and what strategy best connects with that target.

Their site is a sight all right. It’s an example of choosing a strategy that, while is interesting and will certainly become a case study for social media driven brand marketing, is not on target with the demands and psychographic of their audience. The last time I checked, Skittles were sold at the check-out lines in grocery stores and not at the club or bar.