What Color Does Weird Taste Like?

The opera singing rabbit, the beard that feeds the man candy, a kid with blender hands thinks he has a great idea, the tiger-elephant, Skittles has had some pretty surreal commercials, but this campaign takes the bizarre cake. The last couple of years, skittles has been making ads that are quite out of the ordinary, but this is probably the farthest out there yet. This seems to be a trend in the candy industry because Juicy Fruit and Starburst have done the ‘weird’ theme and even Burger King and Orbit has followed step. Most unusually is that not all of these products target the 15-17 audience, like skittles. At least Skittles are keeping consistent with a more immature subject matter.



TBWA\Chiat\Day came up with the campaign, dubbed one of the ‘Best Spots’ from Ad Week, and it has been getting a lot of coverage and buzz for its absurdity; which, in all likeliness, is even more absurd, because it works that well with Skittles’ multi-colored-ness. Although I have read a lot of short comments, mostly “WTF” or “I love it”, “It’s so funny”, it seems that people absolutely love it or they can’t stand to see it. No matter what, it is unforgettable, either in a good or bad way, and is certainly different. No matter what other odd commercials are airing, Skittles theme is consistent and therefore, they are easily attachted to that strangeness. Although I found no blogs or articles stating that people aboslutly hated the commericials that were more than a sentence long, I figured people did dislike them, but weren't adament enough to take time to write very much about it. The number of congratulatory articles and blogs far outweighted the negative. To see for yourself watch the commerical and tell me what you think...

To watch the commercials go to: http://www.skittles.com/advertising/index.jsp

And if you want to read about what others said about the commercial go to:
http://www.adjab.com/2006/10/12/ads-we-love-skittles-trade/; www.adweek.com; “Why Advertising Needs More Candy-Feeding Beards Ideas” Advertising Age http://adage.com/smallagency/article?article_id=111677