Skittles Widget: All Flow, No Archive

In the last few days the ad world has been abuzz about Skittles’ approach to their website. They didn’t build one. People seem to think this is a good thing.

• Stop Doing Websites says Matt Hames
• Is Skittles onto something? asks Brian Morrissey

Instead, they built a widget that brings together all the Skittles mentions on popular social websites like YouTube and Twitter. An interesting idea, for sure.

So what’s missing from the discussion?

I hear way too much about the new hotness of Twitter and social media and little real understanding of how the web works.

So a quick lesson on what I think’s missing.

The web works in two ‘states’ (for lack of a better word): flow and archive.

• Flow: all the new content coming onto the web and its parsing, aggregation, recombination, etc. For short, consider this the new stuff. New blog posts. New Twitter tweets. New YouTube videos. Access is by RSS, browsing, email, IM, alerts.
• Archive: all the content that’s no longer new but is still accessible and indexed for retrieval. For short, this is the culmination of not-new stuff. Old stuff organized and accessed by tags, categories, searches and links.

Most folks only get the archive aspect of the web once they’ve used it and managed websites for a number of years. It’s a little counterintuitive and different from all other media types.

Flow is short-term candy to fire people up. Archive is long-term value that ages and improves over time.

And the Skittles widget has no archive.

Some folks may argue that it doesn’t need an archive. The archive is the web, the Google index, the Twitter index.

And that’s partially true. But the Google index (and the YouTube / Twitter / etc. indexes) is a private asset owned and controlled by Google. Skittles (and any brand that doesn’t want to only keep paying rents to others) need to be creating their own archive.

But traditional advertising, it’s all flows. It’s commercials and media buys and slots and placements and campaigns. Here and then gone. No archive. No long-term value that ages and improves over time.

So instead of saying Stop Doing Websites, I think brands should Stop Doing (Only) Campaigns.

Start doing ongoing platforms for connecting. Start creating archives of engagement, connection and creativity from the flows of campaigns.

Start understanding the web and working how the web works.

Tags:
archive, Brian Morrissey, campaigns, flow, google, Matt Hames, Skittles, Twitter, widgets, youtube

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“Stop doing websites” is something I fall back on a lot in thinking about marketing solutions online.

I think, to use your words, we’ve done far too much archiving, and precious little storytelling/flowing/engaging. Does Skittles do this?

I’m not sure. What I am sure of is they didn’t sit around and do a website for the sake of one. At least they had a plan. We can argue its merits, but most websites are there for the sake if it, making them the only marketing tool that’s done without a strategy. “We have to have a website”.

Stop doing a website because you think you have to have one.

And I would be one of the people who argue that an impulse buy product like Skittles doesn’t need an archive. It can merely be around the conversation — not in it. Do people want to talk with Skittles?

Or just about them.

Love the flow versus archive distinction. One definitely looks very differently at the advertising they are creating if comes from a “this will be around forever” perspective rather than I’ve got 4 weeks of air time then the ephemeral content disappears. The archive consideration is rarely considered. Increasingly should be, especially when considering brands can create and release content/ads/widgets/things/whatever that don’t rely on paid media 24/7/365.

@Matt: I like the rhetorical idea behind, ‘stop doing websites’ – the challenge to consider why and how to do a website.

My point is that a well-crafted website that evolves with the marketing solutions of a brand continues to be the best way we have to create a living archive of engagement for a brand. So I kinda agree. Stop doing new websites (and particularly the terrible Flash microsite) and start building platforms for brand engagement.

As far as Skittles role in the conversations about its brand, I would think it wants to participate and to collect an archive. If Skittles doesn’t collect an archive it cedes this to others. Look on YouTube at the popularity of Skittles ads and you’ll see the value of the archive. It’s YouTube who attracts the attention, hosts the archive and conversation and learns all the lessons.

@Brett: thanks for the kind words. I think smart brands will find that their archive could, in aggregate, provide more traffic, attention and *way* better ROI than their flow. But they have to start thinking like they are a media company.

The problem will be that they have no access to the archive because of rights issues, royalties contracts and technical issues. Little value existed for the archive in the past and it was treated accordingly.

So who will capitalize on the archive? YouTube / Google is the current leader and no one shows any sign of upsetting them.

[...] We’ve mentioned it before, talking about how Skittles didn’t get flow and archive with their widget. [...]