The Skittles Holiday Pawn Shop – a physical pop-up shop in downtown Toronto – allowed customers to trade their unwanted holiday gifts for something they could truly enjoy – Skittles!

The Skittles Holiday Pawn Shop opened on Boxing Day 2015 in downtown Toronto. For 5 days, thousands of customers brought in gifts and holiday items they didn’t want to trade for what they did – a grand total of over 52,000 bags of Skittles.

Two weeks prior to opening, we used press kits to media, online video, social content, local print ads and wild postings to drive awareness of the live pawn shop. There was even a mobile website where visitors could have their unwanted items appraised in real time, finding out how much they were worth in Skittles. Those who couldn’t make it to the physical store received a coupon with their appraisal, redeemable anywhere in Canada.

In just a short period of time, and with a small media budget, the campaign earned a staggering 100 MILLION free media impressions, including coverage on Canada’s top 5 TV broadcasts multiple times. Requests even poured in from around the globe to bring the pawn shop to their city.

During the 5 days the shop was open, thousands of customers traded in unwanted items for a grand total of over 3 million Skittles. All items collected – over 3,300 in total - were then donated to one of Canada’s largest charities.

With over 100 million impressions, 51,798 website visits and 2,720 visitors to the pawn shop, we exceeded our campaign goals by 203%, 420% and 120% respectively.

The Skittles Holiday Pawn Shop allowed fans to Experience the Rainbow in a way they never could before. We created an engaging and response-driven event where they could interact with the brand and demonstrate their unabashed love for the colourful candy.

We discovered that nearly 75% of Canadians had been disappointed by a bad holiday gift. So, we decided to use this data to turn a negative into a positive.

Skittles is a quirky brand that entertains the masses by twisting the ordinary. In this case: a twist on the classic North American pawn shop where the currency was Skittles.

For our 13-17-year-old target audience, the chance to trade that ugly sweater from grandma for Skittles was something they couldn’t, and didn’t, pass up.

Skittles wanted to increase their top-of-mind awareness during the holidays – a time when traditional candy takes over. They needed an idea that would not only compete against traditional holiday candy, but one that would cut through the clutter of all holiday advertising.