[dimitry]

"Actually, almost none of the conversation about the stuff has to do with any of the things that make Skittles Skittles: It’s just folks mentioning Skittles to get on the Skittles home page."

He clearly misses the point. They're mentioning Skittles and that's effective brand building.

[axod]

Several of them seem to be mentioning Skittles to build their own 'brand' - online persona/spamming/looking cool/etc

I'm really not sure having your brand associated with spam/abuse/people trying to say idiotic+offensive things, is a good idea personally. It's like a massive bait to get people to abuse your product.

The google serps are already filling up with links between "skittles" and random abusive offensive stuff.

[technologizer]

Skittles obviously thinks that mere mentions of Skittles is effective brand-building. I do, however, dispute that mentions are very useful except as a stunt. And surely at some point the association of Skittles with racism, vomiting, etc. doesn't constitute "brand building" in the least.