Category Archives: social marketing

Mob.

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Skittles “Mob the Rainbow” is my favorite Skittles attempt to stay relevant – learn about it here. While their social site redo was a flash in the pan with an age restriction I just didn’t understand, their quirky spots adon’t make me crave their candy but this social campaign might just make me a fan of the brand. Its nice to see an agency other than Crispin + Porter pulling something like this off – good work  TBWA/Chiat/Day.

Mob the Rainbow’s first act was to bestow thousands of valentine cards to a lucky meter maid check out the video below. No details on the mob’s next mission, but I will definitely be checking in.

Oh but one thing the twitter button on your FB page shown above does not work and your link to youtube goes to a channel that doesn’t actually have any videos….you might want to update those or just remove the links from your profiles.

Skittles.

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A week ago Skittles relaunched their website and it looked strangely familiar…reminiscent of Modernista’s unwebsite, Skittles.com’s site is merely a redirect to social networks, Wikpedia, YouTube and a couple of static pages. 

Initially, the Skittles homepage was pointed at the results page for a ”skittles” twitter search but within a couple of hours there were hundreds of inappropriate tweets making onto the results page. Hilarious for those of us with a juvenile sense of humor, but probably not what Skittles had intended. They have since redirected the homepage to their Wikipedia entry, but those twitter search results are still the redirect for the “chatter” section of the site. 

There was no clear consensus within my Twitter friends if it was genius or a lame attempt to jump on the bandwagon. I can’t understand why would they attempt to feed off of a social network without someone who was actively twittering as the face of the brand? Unless of course Skittles the Cat (@skittles) is the mastermind behind the candy. 

While I applaud the attempt to “go social” and I love the idea of the unwebsite, I really don’t think that it fits with the brand of the product. Once all the attention dies down from the new site, how is the unwebsite going to further the brand, continue to build awareness or make me want some Skittles? Just because the unwebsite is a great idea, doesn’t mean its a great idea for the brand. 

You can read some great posts on the Skittles redesign here, here and here. 

Now if I could have had a hand in this site redo, I would have taken a look around the internets to see what people were already saying about the brand. Check out what I learned about Skittles in 5 minutes. Starting with my first two Google searchs (auto completes say a lot!):

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Excess.

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So raise your hand if in the last few weeks you’ve noticed these ads EVERYWHERE online. 

excess

While these ads annoy me to no end, I would kill to work on this account. This is one of the few accounts that has increased their spend recently and they are just blanketing the web. 

Not sure if their on a behavioral buy (although I don’t look up diet information), could be demographic (because all 25 year old women are obsessed with their weight) or maybe they’re just buying remanent ad space by zip or DMA.

The website (yes I clicked, I was curious) is positioned as a San Diego woman’s blog. Anyone else click through on these and have a website targeting their DMA?

Relevancy.

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The recent IDC report released in November investiageted the differences between social network users and ‘regular’ internet users. The study discovered that social network users were less receptive to online advertising with only 57% of SN users clicking on at least one ad in the last year compared to 79% of all web users. 

I don’t think anyone who is on a social network is really surprised. Facebook ads have become absolutely ridiculous. I really only see about 10 products that constantly rotate and no advertiser is really targeting me other than my gender, location or relationship status. Few advertisers take advantage of Facebook’s ability to get super targeted, especially the spam folks. You can display ads based on words included on my profile, come on make them relevant! 

Sometimes I click on the spam ads just to make them pay them pay for my clicks. I know, I’m totally getting coal in my stocking this year. 

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Internet.

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I previously posted about Obama’s ability to connect to voters through his incredibly savvy use of the internet and hiring a team of people who knew how to harness its capabilites. For this reason he is being hailed as the first Internet President for being able to communicate and motivate via his internet marketing. 

His win validates the useful of social media and online marketing. Something he clearly recognizes as his presidential did not stop his use of the internet to organize his supporters. 

Within a day or two of winning, Obama launched a website to encourage the public to continue to openly communicate with his administration and share their concerns and hopes. Change contains a blog, news, educational information as well as a countdown to Obama’s ingauration and an application to work in the Obama-Biden administration. It also contains a section called the American momment which asks supporters to tell Obama what his win meant to them. 

Pretty incredible embrace of new media. I hope he continues it throughout his term in office and sets a precedent for future presidents. 

Read more about Obama’s marketing successes here, here and here. 


Polar.

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Last summer I spent 2 weeks in Iceland…amazing place. In my preparation I read up on some history books and tourism information and stumbled on my favorite little nugget of information regarding the island. 

In 1972 a piece of iceberg drifting down from the pole to Iceland with a polar bear passanger. Before landing the polar bear was shot as he had been floating so long he was extremely hungry and would eat anything/one as soon as it landed. That bear remains in a quirky little museum in Húsavík as a reminder.Even before that poor bear floated down, old maps have illustrations of polar bears floating towars the island on little pieces of ice. Either it was a common occurance or a common fear in earlier years.

I wanted nothing more than to see my very own polar bear on ice during my trip. Everytime we were in sight of the ocean I kept my eyes wide in hopes of seeing a little guy floating on down. Sadly that ancedote from 1972 was the last known occurance.

Green Peace wants to prevent the chance of it happening again and launched an ambient campaign in DC. It features polar bears who were foced to retreat to DC due to global warming (hopefully making the trip on their ice rafts!). There are several variations of the installation and a video from Animal New York here. 

Definitely gets the point across and the bears look pretty lovable and sad.

This is my favorite picture from the well executed non-traditional work.