Skittles and our agency partner came to AKA needing video content to support the first year of a multi-year NFL sponsorship.

• Be weird.
• Be disruptive.
• Leverage celebrity assets and the brand’s unique view of “Reality with a Twist.”
• Repeat.
• Refine and repeat, again.

1. Be Weird

A Really Weird Parking Lot Party: AKA first created a bizarre tailgate party video featuring NFL legend Kurt Warner in a hot tub full of Skittles. Our agency partner was able to leverage the video content with earned exposure across all media.

2. Be Disruptive

Marshawn Lynch Answers Questions from the Skittles Rainbow: A day before he would famously answer “I’m only here so I won’t get fined” 23 times, Skittles engaged its biggest fan Marshawn Lynch with this faux press conference that broke the internet. The video content was shared on USAToday.com more than 470,000 times, but earned engagement and video views were just the beginning. The video was featured on “Today,” “The View,” and was even spoofed on “Saturday Night Live.” Although it was just one piece of the branded content strategy for the Super Bowl, the video was listed number 67 on Unruly’s Top 100 Super Bowl Commercials of All Time and won 15 industry awards including Sabre’s “Best Use of the Internet.”

3. Leverage celebrity assets and the brand’s unique view of “Reality with a Twist.”

Behind-the-Scenes with Steven Tyler on the 2016 Skittles Super Bowl commercial: While Aerosmith’s frontman was working on this memorable commercial, AKA provided behind-the-scenes content, including a sit down interview with legendary Demon of Screamin’.

Antonio Brown Gets a Skittles Vending Machine: In year two, the Skittles brand continued to leverage its NFL sponsorship with additional NFL influencers such as Pittsburgh Steeler Antonio Brown, who received his very own Skittles vending machine.

Newsjacking with Trevor Siemian: Rookie quarterback Trevor Siemian needed to find the perfect gift for his offensive line. So Skittles hooked him up with six custom-made parkas complete with built-in Skittles dispensers. The video content release was timed perfectly for a primetime NFL game on Christmas Day. The parkas are real. They’re the gift that keeps on giving Skittles, whenever you need them.

4. Repeat.

Beast Mode Sells Skittles on a Home Shopping Network: The award-winning success of Marshawn Lynch’s Skittles Press Conference was a difficult act to follow. So when Skittles called with a top-secret assignment to produce a segment with Beast Mode selling Skittles on a home shopping network, AKA responded with the only branded video content on the New York Daily News Top 10 Sports Viral Videos of 2015. The segment was made to look and feel authentic to the Evine channel. It really aired on TV for about seven minutes on a random Tuesday morning, and yes, they sold out of Skittles. In addition to 2 million earned views and more than 6,000 earned social shares, the video drove earned coverage for the brand across traditional and digital media.

5. Refine and Repeat, Again:

Marshawn Lynch Slides Through Scotland:
Our Super Bowl 51 experience with Skittles tested our global capabilities as our production team explored Houston, Scotland, with Beast Mode. In one short day with Marshawn and his favorite brand of candy, AKA produced internet gold – again. Marshawn decided to pull some wheelies during a break in the action, which created a clip that went viral, raising expectations that Skittles was shooting a Super Bowl commercial in Scotland.

The video content was broken into a dozen shorts for sharing on Instagram, earning more than a million views in the first 24 hours. This branded video content smashed through Super Bowl advertising clutter, reaching 550 million earned impressions across all media and delivering more than $2 Million in ad value for the brand.