Challenge​
To revive momentum to a lagging core business, Skittles needed to bring salience and appeal back to its basic product proposition. Driving sustainable growth in chewy was no small task in a category increasingly dominated by innovation, new formats and new news. We needed to make Skittles worthy of attention (and eating!) – to win back candy consumers to the classic Skittles offering.​
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Insight & Strategy​
Since a fateful 2013 decision to change the flavor of green Skittles from lime to green apple, we had observed a subculture forming around a longing for lime’s return -- fueling a years-long “backlash” over the lime-to-green apple shift. To remind the broader audience of category buyers of the classic Skittles experience, we realized, we would have to lean into an uncomfortable truth: our most passionate core Skittles fans were actually our most thoroughly- disgruntled consumers.​
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Idea & Solution​
Rekindle the core Skittles love by finally acknowledging the flavor change “hate”, taking the Corporate Mea-Culpa to absurd new lengths, permanently returning Lime and personally apologizing to everyone who had complained… all 130,880 of them.​
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Impact​
Our efforts to re-stage the core Skittles business drove both historic commercial success and rekindled salience – finally satisfying a community of rabid flavor fanatics, and using their over-the-top passion to remind the masses of the joy of “Tasting the Rainbow” in its original form. This resurgence resulted in a +7.4% lift in dollar sales, a +14.9% increase in velocity and a +162% increase in lime Skittles mentions in social.​