Skittles: Exclusive the Rainbow

Skittles, a brand of fruit-flavoured candy, increased sales during the Super Bowl by launching an ad for just one person and teasing what could be in the ad that nobody would see.

The Challenge

After three straight years as a Super Bowl advertiser, Skittles faced a daunting challenge in 2018. How could the brand, an official NFL sponsor, be as big a presence in and around the Super Bowl without shelling out $5 million to run a spot in the game?

With the right idea, could the brand steal what it had previously paid for?

The Idea

Skittles made an epic, full-fledged Super Bowl ad, but instead of paying $5 million for :30 in front of 110 million people, it instead paid $0 to show it one lucky person: a California teenager...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands