I tasted the rainbow, and its not organic. Skittles rolled the dice this week by changing its home page yesterday to twitter search results for the term “skittles” and today to its facebook group page. A spokesman for the company said they were reaching out to teens “to be part of the conversation”, but what transpired wasn’t exactly healthy dialog (the tweets included such gems as “skittles supports killing kittens and puppies”). When tapping into the collective power of the social web, companies are at the mercy of anonymous, often malicious, posters (including those engaging in corporate sabotage, see http://tinyurl.com/cj9q4s). Although this stunt admittedly garnered a ton of media attention, particularly among advertising industry insiders and social media bloggers, it is unclear whether it bought credibility among the users it sought to engage — teenagers.
