We identified and personally responded to everyone who had ever complained about us taking away Lime skittles. All 130,880 of them. Not just a single blanket apology using mass media, we apologized directly to each and every individual, and sent each free Lime Skittles to make amends.

In 2013 Skittles replaced their Lime flavor with Green Apple. Turns out this was a terrible idea. For over 9 years, lime-loving fans have bombarded the brand with complaints, and kept their "Bring Back Lime" campaign going strong. In 2022 we decided to finally bring back Lime flavor, and that provided the perfect opportunity to finally respond to and engage with these Lime fanatics.. Re-launching Lime in the most absurdly Skittles way - surfacing and using all that brand anger to show the passion people have for Lime.

9 years ago we took away Lime flavor and pissed off a lot of Skittles fans. To finally re-launch Lime flavored Skittles, we decided to use something pretty unusual for a brand - all the online anger and hate directed at us. After all, nothing shows the love for something like the anger when its taken away. So we literally apologized to everyone who ever complained – all 138,880 of them. Individually. Offering personal apologies live on Twitch, on Twitter, on billboards in Times Square and with a post listing every single personal we’d wronged that took over 10 hours to read. And not just an empty apology. We sent everyone free Lime Skittles. Re-launching Lime Skittles by acknowledging our mistake in the most absurdly personal corporate apology ever.

In 2013 Skittles took away the Lime Skittles and replaced it with green apple. Turns out that was a terrible idea. A lot of people complained - 130,880 of them to be exact. And they have continued to complain online for over 9 years. To announce that Lime was back, we decided to acknowledge these complaints, and make amends. But not simply by offering a boilerplate corporate apology. Skittles was going to apologize to every...single...one of them. Individually. We analyzed 9-years-worth of social conversation to identify everyone who had voiced their anger. Then tailored our response to address those individual handles and their complaints directly. Instead of hiding or ignoring all that online anger, we used all that hate to show how much passion there was for Lime, and turned those hundreds of thousands of haters back to Skittles fans…one sincere, direct apology at a time.

We used the formats and 'formula' of the traditional Corporate Apology to execute the campaign -- mimicking where they appear, what they look like, and how they are (often poorly) conveyed.

We kicked off with a live press conference on Twitch, where 136,000 people watched us individually apologize to angry tweets for over 40 minutes. It was an opportunity not only to reach a gaming community who over-index for category consumption, but also to prove the authenticity (and absurdity) of the idea.

To keep the momentum going, we followed up with direct "apology" replies to Lime Lovers on social, in digital OOH ads, and with an open letter to every single one of them -- which took 11 hours to read. To provide proper restitution, we also offered free Skittles to everyone who had gone on record with their Lime Love (or green apple hate).

Highest Core Sales in the history of the brand

Double Digit growth ahead of the category (+21% for Skittles Core and +40% for Skittles Sours)

Search for Lime Skittles up 1000%

Twitter mentions up 400%

100% Positive / Neutral Sentiment