In March 2009, Skittles launched a re-branding campaign headed by aggressive social media marketing. In a nut shell, Skittles turned their online presence over to the public- Google searches for Skittles direct people to user generated content such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter instead of their website. Marketing directors and industry leaders were highly skeptical of this strategy at the time. Today, however, this untraditional approach has proven to be highly successful and mimicked by many.
Skittles has a Facebook following of almost 15 million, many of which actively follow the page and comment on Skittles off-the-wall status updates. For example, in a post from December 12, 2010 Skittles says, "Grizzly bears are the best fashion models. Nobody does fierce like they do". Try this one on for size from January 20, 2011, "Bathtubs make fantastic half-pipes for skater parakeets". While these status updates are completely random and irrelevant to the brand they seem to really resonate with the followers.
Most recently, Skittles is running a promotion where the winner- chosen based upon the person who comes up with the outrageous thing they would do to win - wins a Skittles vending machine.
While not many brands could swing a campaign like this, it seems to be the perfect fit for Skittles niche audience. It will be interesting to see how this social media monster moves forward! As they say, "Taste the Rainbow". These days it seems you ARE the Rainbow!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/skittles
