Weekly Ad Uncoiling: Skittles
WHAT?!? (Watch video.) Now, Skittles, through ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day\NY, has done some truly bizarre candy advertising in the past couple of years. There was Long Beard, Piñata Man, Sour Milk, Sheep Boys, and, one of my all-time favorite commercials, the sadly hilarious Touch. But this spot is—as we say in the fake-wonderful land of ad creativity—trying waaay to hard. In case you missed it (I did), the Caucasian customer’s three reflections are an African-American, a Latino, and an Asian (Filipino, according to the YouTube description). And, the tailor is Thai. The Filipino reflection begins eating Skittles, prompting a complaint from white man, prompting a berating from the tailor, prompting the Filipino to complain “I’m hungry. I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten yet” (according to Adrants’s Angela Nativdad’s translation), prompting more berating, prompting the kicking of the mirror…tagline: “Reflect the rainbow. Taste the rainbow.” So, is this some sort of social advertising by M&M Mars? A rainbow coalition? Sorry, but a candy ad should just make me want to eat the candy, not contemplate hostilities between Southeast Asian countries.
January 15th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Agreed on the trying too hard assessment. Kind of with the whole campaign (Touch, in my opinion, is the only really successful one), but especially this one. It’s just…wholly unclear what’s meant to be going on or even how it relates to skittles even remotely. (Jumping off in a new direction now) Of course, my very favorite candy commercial of all time is definitely the Snickers “Song of Satisfaction.” Gold.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? Hahaha. Make the oddest commercial ya’ can, and it damn sure keeps people talking about the ad…and hopefully, from the suit’s perspective, the product itself?
January 16th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Well, outright surrealism does sometimes seem to work the way Jerem suggest it ought to…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iKdQC-hbY7k
I suppose I do kinda appreciate the attempt at something creative. It’s probably preferable to the ‘epic and completely unsubtle approach to tug at the heartstrings’ method anyway.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4c4ER8Pzo
(apologies if either of those were brought up before…)
January 16th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I’d like to teach the world to sing…
Oh wait, wrong overreaching campaign.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Is it wrong that I’m now craving Skittles? That could just be me though.
This ad did make me go “What?” and maybe that’s really what they were going for. I doubt that, but I hope right?
January 17th, 2009 at 9:04 am
O_O Wow, hahaha!
July 22nd, 2013 at 7:46 pm
I love that Skittles advert! I think it is very effective and certainly makes me want to eat some.