A little while ago, Skittles (owned by Mars) jumped into the social media limelight with a campaign by Agency.com which saw the brand upload a Twitter feed as its landing page. as part of a user-generated push.
 
Part of a user-generated push, regularly-refreshed, unfiltered Tweets flooded through. While refreshing to see, it's a pretty gutsy move if you ask me.

Employing other social media elements including YouTube clips of TV ads and a Wikipedia page with the history of the flavoursome treats, the Skittles landing page switches between Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. The shortcut navigation to different campaign elements and the 'mix the rainbow' feature where visitors can create their own music track are all very cool but while the transparency of Skittles deserves a big pat on the back, the strategy seems to have backfired somewhat.
 
I'm definitely not a prude but it doesn't sit well with me for a brand that is synonymous with sweet, sweet deliciousness to have dodgy content on its landing page. One bright spark among many Tweeted Skittles alongside some not so sweet words which ran on the Skittles landing page.

My other fairly large concern is about the longevity of this campaign. How can it maintain people’s interest once the initial buzz has died down?
 
When brand's employ social media, it’s an ongoing conversation that they should be aiming for, not a spark that momentarily generates interaction, only to disappear as fast as a pack of Skittles on my desk.

http://www.skittles.com