A SOFTENING SKITTLES CORE

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

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

We needed an idea that would remind people of this core product, and make it worthy of attention (and eating!) – creating enough “news” out of the classic Skittles experience to make it a salient option once again.

A POTENT BUT PROBLEMATIC SOURCE OF CORE SKITTLES PASSION

While many category buyers --including a must-win cohort of teen eaters-- had largely lost interest in the core Skittles proposition, we knew one group had been obsessed with it for nearly a decade.

In 2013, Skittles had swapped its lime flavor for green apple, and in the 9 years since, a remarkably persistent and disgruntled subculture had formed to demand its return.

They had logged 11,000+ complaints with Mars Wrigley, and averaged 47 mentions of lime on our social channels every day... FOR NINE YEARS STRAIGHT. They represented the most visible interest and engagement around the core Skittles product, even as they were actively “hating” on it.

If we could find a way to positively harness their “negative” passion, we realized, we could use it to regain the attention of the masses.

It meant embracing an uncomfortable truth: our most passionate core Skittles fans were actually our most thoroughly-disgruntled consumers.

RE-KINDLING THE CORE SKITTLES LOVE, BY FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING THE FLAVOR-CHANGE HATE

In 2022, we decided to finally give in to Lime Lovers' demands. We would restage core Skittles, to bring back Lime for good.

And to bring maximum attention and authenticity to this restage, we decided to embrace the over-the-top angst of our flavor fanatics. Instead of shying away from their criticism, we would lean into it, and offer an apology.

But instead of yet another boilerplate corporate mea-culpa, we would flip the script with a classically ridiculous Skittles idea: individually apologizing to every single person who complained about us taking lime away... all 130,880 of them.

UPENDING THE CORPORATE APOLOGY PLAYBOOK

To bring the idea to life, we messed with the tropes and trappings of the standard Corporate Apology. Reflecting not only the classic self-aware Skittles style, but the streak of corporate-America wariness that defined a modern Gen Z outlook. With just 6% of Gen Z’ers saying they “trust corporations to do the right thing” (vs. 60% of gen. pop.), poking a little fun at the traditionally stilted, shallow, and sanitized corporate response to wrongdoing offered a welcome release from reality.

From a gloriously awkward live-streamed press conference, to individual fan apologies splashed across Times Square, to an open letter 16 feet in length, our absurdly personal displays of remorse put core Skittles back on the radar and back into consumers' repertoires.