Re-skittling The Internet
MY ROLE
Developed Global Strategy for Skittles on Social
Designed an ongoing improvement plan to ensure continuous growth and optimisation
Lead the implementation of a blended agency-client team
Ongoing Strategic Development
Creative Direction & Support
THE PROBLEM
Skittles is one of the most beloved brands online, and has long history of dominating the social internet in particular. But recently, as trends and behaviours have changed and brands have become less welcome in digital spaces, their position at the top of the pile has been harder and harder to maintain. The kind of tone-forward, heavy attitude content they Skittles is famous for has become commonplace.
So, I was asked (alongside the incredible Mars social team, and DDB’s global team) to help build a forward-facing strategic approach that would help Skittles continue it’s journey as a leader of the internet - and a leader of best practice inside Mars, as well. This approach would start rollout in the United States, but ultimately be rolled out in every Skittles market.
WHAT WE DID
The specifics of what we did together are a bit top secret - but here are the cliff notes.
We started by busting down the typical agency/client structure. Mars’ internal social team do incredible work for the brand every day. DDB’s team create exceptional scaled campaigns. Both teams had something to offer each other, but had traditionally been kept seperate.
Next, we went back to brass tacks - why should anyone care about Skittles? What, if anything, makes us special? Do we need to manufacture that special, or just listen to how people are already talking about us?
From our history, we knew that we could participate in social conversation in a way that many other brands couldn’t - so we had to ask, how far could we push this? What communities and subcultures would welcome us, and how could they contribute to our ongoing commercial success?
As we answered some of these questions, we developed a playbook and framework to allow us to create work at a speed that matched these communities, and culture more broadly - while still keeping Skittle’s commercial goals in mind.
This all came to life in a comprehensive brand book and strategy, that started rolling out in the real world.
RESULTS
The new approach was implemented from October 2022, and so long-term results are still being collected - but a selection of the work generated since then is featured below.
LIVE LINKS, IN CASE YOU’RE INTO THAT