Skittles disrupts traditional OOH with “Irritate the Rainbow” campaign

Created by adam&eve\TBWA in London, Skittles’ new OOH campaign ‘Irritate the Rainbow,’ aims to throw the unexpected by making a bold statement against visual perfection. But does it? 

The core of the OOH execution consists of a series of three minimalist posters that, at first glance, appear to showcase the iconic rainbow-colored candies. However, upon closer inspection, the Skittles have been meticulously arranged into patterns featuring deliberate, calculated flaws. These small imperfections, such as a single candy being out of alignment or a break in a color sequence, are specifically designed to be “maddeningly imperfect.” 

Imperfect, yes. But maddeningly so? Not sure. What are the chances that someone passing by the poster is so annoyed at a small Skittle out of place that he or she stops to stare at it?     

“Skittles doesn’t do things normally, so we created a poster campaign designed to irritate…Each design features a Skittle subtly out of place to make them visually annoying,” shares Colin Booth, Creative Director at Adam&EVE/TBWA in his social media post about the campaign. But for audiences passing by these posters, would a small Skittle out of place really matter enough to irritate? Unless they were of course targeting audiences with a high level of OCD! 

The visual flaw in third poster in the series in fact hardly jumps out and is more like a spot the flaw contest! The creative team quite obviously put in a lot of time and effort to creative something disruptive that forces onlookers to stop in their tracks and stare at the creative long enough to wonder. It would be good to know if it really managed to achieve that. 

Point to ponder- do some creative ideas seem more exciting for the creators than for the intended audience?