Candy Blog

Last week, a friend told me that Skittles has more than 8 million Facebook fans. I checked this Saturday, and sure enough, Skittles has 8,682,144 friends. When I checked again last night, Skittles was up to 8,727,245 friends. That’s 45,101 friends joining the party in 48 hours.

Hmmmm. This made me wonder how many Facebook friends other top US candy brands have amassed … and what it would look like if I matched up the 25 best-selling candy brands in the US with each brand’s number of Facebook friends. My unscientific results may startle you.

Sales Rank*      Brand (Manufacturer)              Facebook Fans

25                       Ice Breakers (Hershey)              21,051

24                       Orbit White (Mars)                     566,854

23                       Dentyne Ice (Kraft)                     7,343 (Canada)

22                       Tic Tac (Ferrero)                         933,074

21                       Hershey’s Kisses (Hershey)       84,532

20                       Trident White (Kraft)                   (see Trident, No. 6 spot)

19                        Butterfinger (Nestle)                  527,262

18                        Milky Way (Mars)                       none found

17                        Starburst (Mars)                         3,971,587

16                        3 Musketeers (Mars)                  126, 713

15                        Dove (Mars)                               38,476

14                        Skittles (Mars)                            8,720,108

13                        Twizzlers (Hershey)                   54,829

12                        Twix (Mars)                                984,655

11                        Eclipse (Mars)                            none found

10                        Extra (Mars)                               95,879

9                          Kit Kat (Hershey)                       889,183

8                          Stride (Kraft)                              689,771

7                          5 (Mars)                                     1,462,127

6                          Trident (Kraft)                            329,249

5                          Orbit (Mars)                               566,851

4                          Snickers (Mars)                         596,860

3                          Hershey’s                                   1,014,925

2                          Reese’s PB Cups (Hershey’s)   3,515,716

1                          M&M’s (Mars)                            1,152,646

(*Sales Rank based on retail sales data from Symphony IRI Group, a Chicago-based market research firm for the 52 weeks that ended on Sept. 6, 2009. Data collected from supermarkets, drugstores, gas/C-stores and mass market retailers, excluding Walmart.)

Extrapolating from my “research,” Facebook friends and product sales don’t really correlate. Skittles is by far the most popular US candy brand on Facebook, but it’s not in the top 10 for sales. Tic Tac has close to 1 million friends, but the itty-bitty mints rank 22 out of 25 for sales. Even so, it’s interesting to see which brands are using Facebook as a major marketing platform, and which are not.

I am always a fan of the underdog, so if Mars does decide to create a Facebook page for Milk Way, I want to be the first BFF.

What candy brands have you “friended”?