Skittles has relaunched its site a year after which it has basked in the spotlight both loved and hated by digital watchdogs. The new skittles.com tacks away from the social media transparency approach after being on fire for displaying an unedited slew of inappropriate, controversial feed posts rained by pranksters. The new site now invites visitors to “taste the rainbow” by scrolling down to discover (rather static) content aggregated from different social media sources including its Twitter account which has (sadly) slightly over 400 followers, and a new microsite, shareskittles.com, where users can contribute to a video montage of sharing the candy (a much poorer cousin compared to the execution of Uniqlo Map).

Well, despite the criticism, Skittles is one of the most popular brands in social media. Its Facebook page, which was prominently featured on the old site, boasts 3.6 million fans. And it didnt really incentivise with promotions or free products so to speak, alot of the updates are really just tongue-in-cheek messages which garnered thousands of “likes” from fans every single time. I wonder if all these buzz did actually increase sales, or brand affinity and how much. That will be interesting to measure and for us digital marketers to know.

http://skittles.com