Just in case your Internet access has been down these last few days, you might want to click on over to Skittles.com and see what’s going on there. Essentially, their “Web site” is a widget that delivers social media content like Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia pages about Skittles.

David Berkowitz posted a good article yesterday about it all over on MediaPost, and he does a great job at articulating the core of the Skittles experiment when he notes, “Here’s the message Skittles is sending: What consumers say about the brand is more important than what the brand has to say to consumers.”

Yep. We’re talking Cluetrain 101, folks. Thesis #90 seems particularly appropos: “Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we’ve been seeing.”

Originally, the “home page” for Skittles was Twitter, then it changed to Facebook. Was that part of an intended rotation of social networks when someone types in the URL? Was it a retreat from the wild, wild openness of Twitter? This Mashable article, and the comments that go with it, review the possibilities.

I salute the boldness Skittles is displaying. At a time when most brands are dipping their toes into the social media waters, Skittles climbs up to the high board, takes a running start and a big bounce, and hits the pool with a big honkin’ messy cannonball that splashes water all over the place.

Whatever one thinks of this experiment, Skittles is ground zero of the online marketing world this week.

I anxiously await news of whether their sales rose, fell, or remained stagnant because of all this.

Takeaway for marketers: Is your toe in the water? Do you wish you had the guts to cannonball? Are you worried that getting wet might muss your hair?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways, Social Media.