The Super Bowl is marketing’s biggest stage for TV advertising. We decided to skip the 30 second ad and instead made a 30-minute Broadway musical. Performed on a real Broadway stage with original lyrics and music, we released a music video, teaser content and a cast recording album on Spotify. Instead of just creating TV content, we created an experience that brought together the worlds of advertising, live performance, music and Broadway to create a type of entertainment never before seen during the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl is the year’s biggest and most competitive marketing moment. Where $5 million buys you a 30 second TV ad and the 100 million viewers that come with it. And every year it’s the same - brands trying to outspend and outdo each other with ever-more elaborate, celebrity-studded, or purpose-driven TV spots to win the battle for attention on this massive marketing stage. Skittles’ brief was simple - get Super-Bowl-sized attention, without spending a penny on the Super Bowl broadcast.

For this year’s Super Bowl we skipped the 30 second TV commercial and instead made a 30 minute Broadway musical.

Strategically, the Skittles brand is all about disrupting the predictable. And what’s become more predictable than the Super Bowl itself? Year after year, the marketing playbook is the same. From the TV ad tropes to the celebrity studded films and macho sport conventions, it’s pretty much the same year after year. Without the budget or the broadcast slot to compete on this traditional stage, we knew the only way Skittles would get noticed was by creating an entirely different stage, altogether. To get attention for the brand, we were going to have to steal it, by subverting the Super Bowl entirely.

For the Super Bowl, Skittles skipped the 30 second TV ad, and made a 30-minute Broadway Musical.

We announced our show like any Broadway Musical would - Times Square billboards and branded busses.

And we actually sold tickets. People spent real-Broadway show prices of over $200 to see an ad, and the show sold out in 72 hours!

As buzz built, we announced our show would feature celebrity Michael C Hall.

Then, while every other brand was celebrating advertising, we released a music video of our title track ‘Advertising Ruins Everything.’

And for the millions not lucky enough to score tickets, we released the original cast recording album on Spotify.

On Super Bowl Sunday we debuted our show to 1,500 people and invited press and influencers. We sold authentic souvenirs– T-shirts, posters, vinyl records. And like any genuine Broadway Show, we even created and sold bootleg shirts outside the theater.

Without spending a penny on the Super Bowl broadcast we ended up with over 2.5 billion earned impressions - over 25 X the viewership a TV ad receives on the big game. The campaign was covered in over 1000 publications and news broadcasts. But was the show actually any good? It even got glowing reviews from the New York Times and Washington Post theater critics. And, most importantly, it resulted in a 5.6% rise in Skittles consumption.