3/16/09
In the past, the people at Mars Inc. have proved themselves to be savvy marketers, as evidenced by their fully integrated black & white campaign for M&M’s. (Carl, 2003) But, this time they appear to have lost their minds, or at least ignored what happened to GM when they ran their consumer-generated ad campaign for the Chevy Tahoe SUV. (Sandoval, 2006)
While there is no doubt that the growth in social networking has created an audience too tempting for advertisers to ignore, this idea may have been ill conceived from the start.
Initially, everyone seemed intrigued by the idea of Skittles turning their site over to consumers, by channeling consumer-generated content from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia to their home page. (Lukovitz, 2009).
But, it didn’t take long for consumers to turn nasty, so on March 3, Mars announced they were pulling the twitter campaign. (Sullivan, 2009)
And, on March 5 they announced that only the brand’s site on Wikipedia would be used for its homepage. (Sullivan, 2009) But, a visit earlier today led me to a homepage with YouTube content and still gave access to the twitter feed. So, at the moment is unclear what their current strategy is.
Are you surprised that consumers got out of hand so quickly? How should we balance the desire for consumer input with the tendency of people to turn nasty? How can we market brands in social networking settings without going to this extreme?
Carl, S. (2003) M&M’s are now black & white, no color. smgboard.com. Retrived March, 16, 2009 from
http://www.smgboard.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t12220.html
Sandoval, G. (2006) GM Slow to React to Nasty Ads. zdnet.com. Retrived March 16, 2009 from
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-147502.html
Lukovitz, K. (2009). Skittles Generates Buzz With Social Media Efforts. online media daily. Retrieved March 3, 2009 from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101304
Sullivan, L. (2009). Skittles Pulls Twitter Campaign. online media daily. Retrived March 4, 2009 from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101437
Sullivan, L. (2009) Skittles Settles On Wikipedia For Brand's Home Page. online media daily. Retrived March 6, 2009 from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101628
While there is no doubt that the growth in social networking has created an audience too tempting for advertisers to ignore, this idea may have been ill conceived from the start.
Initially, everyone seemed intrigued by the idea of Skittles turning their site over to consumers, by channeling consumer-generated content from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia to their home page. (Lukovitz, 2009).
But, it didn’t take long for consumers to turn nasty, so on March 3, Mars announced they were pulling the twitter campaign. (Sullivan, 2009)
And, on March 5 they announced that only the brand’s site on Wikipedia would be used for its homepage. (Sullivan, 2009) But, a visit earlier today led me to a homepage with YouTube content and still gave access to the twitter feed. So, at the moment is unclear what their current strategy is.
Are you surprised that consumers got out of hand so quickly? How should we balance the desire for consumer input with the tendency of people to turn nasty? How can we market brands in social networking settings without going to this extreme?
Carl, S. (2003) M&M’s are now black & white, no color. smgboard.com. Retrived March, 16, 2009 from
http://www.smgboard.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t12220.html
Sandoval, G. (2006) GM Slow to React to Nasty Ads. zdnet.com. Retrived March 16, 2009 from
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-147502.html
Lukovitz, K. (2009). Skittles Generates Buzz With Social Media Efforts. online media daily. Retrieved March 3, 2009 from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101304
Sullivan, L. (2009). Skittles Pulls Twitter Campaign. online media daily. Retrived March 4, 2009 from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101437
Sullivan, L. (2009) Skittles Settles On Wikipedia For Brand's Home Page. online media daily. Retrived March 6, 2009 from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101628
