Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Finally paid attention to ads for Skittles, with the theme “Share the rainbow … Taste the rainbow”. Given my interests in all things rainbow and in foods of all kinds, I thought I’d check out the ad campaign, and found two notable things: a sexy mock ad for Skittles and more rainbow food (using Skittles).

Background on Skittles, from Wikipedia:

Skittles is a brand of fruit-flavoured sweets, currently produced and marketed by the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, a division of Mars, Inc. They have hard sugar shells which carry the letter S. The inside is mainly sugar, corn syrup, and hydrogenated palm kernel oil along with fruit juice, citric acid, and natural and artificial flavours. The confectionery has been sold in a variety of flavour collections, such as Tropical and Wild Berry.

… Skittles’ “taste the rainbow” theme was created by New York ad agency D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles circa 1994.

A rainbow made of Skittles:

(#1)

Skittles commercials tend to be brief and funny, so a number of people have tried their hands at doing parody versions. As in this “Newlyweds” spot (carefully labeled as “not affiliated with Wrigley or Skittles”), which is NSFW:

 (#2)

The newlyweds, still in their wedding clothes,  are screwing energetically and vocally. The groom pulls out and cries, “It’s about to come!” — and then he shoots Skittles into the bride’s mouth and onto her wedding gown, noting with pride, “All over you!”

This is the work of Cousins,

a directing team made up of Jordan Sharon and Keith Hamm, two young filmmakers based in Los Angeles, CA… Their fun and unexpected brand of humor is perfectly represented in the notorious Skittles “Newlyweds” spot, which became a massive viral hit. (link)

When I searched for Skittles ads via “rainbow Skittles”, I pulled up rainbow foodstuffs made with the candies, in particular some Skittles cakes:

Here’s an imposing construction, suitable for a same-sex wedding:

(#3)

and a shorter number with rainbow layers:

(#4)

This entry was posted on August 23, 2013 at 7:32 am and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Humor, Language and food, Language in advertising, Signs and symbols. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.