9 years after Skittles removed its lime flavor, we brought it back by creating the most absurdly personal corporate apology in history. We launched the campaign with a 35 minute livestream where we directly apologized to those who had complained.

Performance of Skittles’ core items was not keeping pace with a growing fruity confections category.

These core items represented nearly 2/3 of the brand’s total dollar volume, but their relative lack of momentum was leading to losses in distribution and visibility. And in a category dominated by a constant stream of new textures, formats, flavors, and innovations, our un-changed, “original” Skittles offering was easier than ever to forget.

We needed an idea that would not only remind people of this core product, but make it worthy of attention (and eating!) – creating enough “news” out of the classic Skittles experience to make it a salient option once again.

Objectives:

1. Drive a 5% lift in $ sales for Skittles core items

2. Drive a 12% lift in velocity (i.e., units sold per store)

3. Earn 100% positive/neutral sentiment in coverage

4. Drive 2x (100%) increase in Lime Skittles social mentions

7.4% lift in $ sales for Skittles core items, YoY

Skittles exceeded its objective in core item dollar sales and recorded the highest US core sales in the brand’s history.

+14.9% YoY lift in units of core Skittles items, per point of distribution

Velocity growth of core Skittles items outpaced both the total Skittles franchise (+12.4%) and was more than 2x the rate of growth for the Fruity Confections category as a whole (+6.2%)

100% positive/neutral sentiment in coverage

The program drove 28MM earned impressions and over 40 earned media placements, including two features in Fast Company, who called the campaign "pretty close to a masterpiece."

162% increase in Lime Skittles social mentions, YoY

Mentions more than doubled vs. their previous year high, as the interest in our restaged core items continued to grow. On Twitter, total brand mentions grew +400% in the campaign’s first week.