The situation with branded content in the UK is that in the sweets category, no one is really leveraging its full potential. There is an over reliance on TV, when the audience is heavily online and totally 2.0. Skittles has been deploying the majority of its budget through digital channels for a number of years, amassing the biggest Facebook fan page in the confectionary category in the UK, with activities such as the Skittles Mega Super Status Updater.

The addition of the blue Skittle demanded an equally Skittles-flavoured campaign, now that the Rainbow was complete. So we played with fans’ desperation for blue, by teasing them with the tale of a Blue trucker, whom they had to like on Facebook to motivate him to deliver a truck loaded with the special sweets. Would the blue skittles make it from the Czech factory to the UK?We whet the fans’ appetite with footage from the Czech factory. We then announced that the special Blue truck had set off. Then, the trucker stopped. We sent a film crew over there to find out why. It turns out the trucker was blue. He asked the fans to ‘like’ him or else. For a week, the fans tracked, ‘liked’ and interacted with him. He would respond directly to personal messages that either goaded or encouraged him. He would regularly update on his state of mind – whether he was feeling blue or not. If he got likes, he would feel upbeat enough to continue his journey, if he didn’t he would throw a tantrum. Fans could check his progress towards the UK via GPS. With enough encouragement, he finally made it all the way to the UK, where he was met and hugged by his no.1 fan. His arrival with a truckload of blue Skittles meant the limited edition packs could now finally hit the UK’s stores.

Fans of Skittles are fanatical about Skittles, they love the colourful little delights as much as the weird and wonderful world of the Experience the Rainbow, Taste the Rainbow campaign. However, for them there had always been one thing missing: the blue Skittle. We listened to their demands and the blue Skittle was born.

In just 7 days, the trucker received over 80,000 ‘likes’. In addition, half a million new fans liked our page. That’s 20% growth. The Blue Skittles sold out within 3 weeks, and after the campaign period, Skittles sales were up a huge 29%.