Taste the Rainbow (of Skittles Marketing Buzz)
If you’re a social media junkie, you’ve probably tasted the rainbow of Skittles’ marketing buzz in the past few days.
This buzz, the result of Skittles’ new “website,” has many observers questioning what actually constitutes a website in the Web 2.0 world.
Skittles' revamped website, created by Agency.com, actually just consists of a hovering graphic that allows users to navigate to Skittles’ profiles on a number of popular social media sites —Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Flickr.
Prior to using Skittles’ new website, though, users have to register their birthday and agree to terms of service. This is because the various social media sites to which the Skittles' website links contain unfiltered user-generated content.
Even the stodgy old unsocial media has picked up on the buzz. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights potential drawbacks of the multi-colored confectioner’s innovative online approach, while a more positive article in AdvertisingAge heaps praise on Skittles and AdAgency.com for their gusto.
So far, it remains unclear if the chatter surrounding Skittles’ website is just a case of marketers gushing about marketing, or if the risky strategy will actually help Skittles to better connect with its target audience.
The growing influence of social media in the business world IS clear, however, and no matter how you define yourself—printer, print service provider, marketing service provider—you and your business will sooner or later need a social media strategy.
Can Citizen Kane Compete with the Kindle?
Hearst Media, publisher of a number of popular magazines like Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and Popular
Mechanics along with as a slew of major newspapers across the United
States, revealed plans last week to produce a hand-held e-reader that will compete in the same market as the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader.
According to a story on Wired, the Hearst e-reader will likely boast a larger screen than the Amazon or Sony product (due to the fact that it will be geared toward newspaper and magazine content) but will still employ the same basic display technology as the two major players currently on the market:
“Hearst Interactive's [Kenneth] Bronfin already sits on the board of directors for E Ink, the company whose screens power both the Kindle and Sony Reader. That means an E Ink screen is a near certainty for the Hearst e-reader.”
Wired also questions (rightfully, I think) whether readers of Hearst’s full-color, glossy magazines will readily adopt a black and white, text-heavy format for their favorite publications.
In related news, Hearst Media recently announced plans to create more premium, for-pay content on its newspapers’ websites. This strategy, reported on in the Wall Street Journal, comes as part of Hearst’s “100 Days of Change” program.
Along with this article, WSJ reprinted a memo to Hearst employees from Steven Swartz, president of Hearst’s newspapers division, in which he outlines the reasoning and strategy behind “100 Days of Change.” While it’s probably worthwhile to read the whole memo, most interesting for our purposes is what Swartz had to say about third-party printers:
“One final overarching thought emerges from our look at advertising sales: we must use third-party printers in all of our markets in order to significantly add more color to our products, not so much for our readers’ needs, but to be more competitive in the battle for advertising dollars in a high-definition world.”
So, as newspapers begin to tighten their budgets by eliminating internal printing operations, third-party commercial printers should stay poised to take advantage of potential new business.
Microsoft Imagines a Well-lit, Touchscreen Future
Finally, I’ll leave you with a video from GeekBrief.TV titled Microsoft Imagines the Future.
In the Microsoft future, information abounds, touchscreens adorn every possible surface, and a soft ambient glow illuminates all spaces. It's very reminiscent of Minority Report, actually.
Of course, as digital printers, I’m sure you’ll appreciate how simple and intuitive file transfer will be in the future—two quick glimpses of this show up at 0:35 and 0:57. You might also enjoy the “future newspaper” that pops up at 0:27.
The video embedded below actually consists of a montage of scenes from a number of individual “future” videos. On GeekBrief.TV you can find the individual videos showcasing Microsoft's visions of the future of manufacturing, retail, banking, and health care.
Special thanks to Joe Kearn, marketing and training coordinator for a leading web2print provider (and one of the most prolific “Twitterers” in the printing industry), for tweeting the link to this video this morning!
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