skills/campaign-canon/references/legendary-campaigns/cards/skittles-broadway-rainbow-2019.md

---
id: skittles-broadway-rainbow-2019
title: Broadway the Rainbow
brand: Skittles
year: 2019
country: US
region: north_america
industry: cpg
pattern: [P11, P09]
category: experiential
idea_type: campaign
involvement: participation
channel: hybrid
duration: campaign
goal: [awareness, engagement, advocacy]
budget: high
emotion: [ironic_sincerity, melancholic_joy]
emotion_tier: 3
insight_domain: joy
media_epoch: social
awards: [unknown]
quality_score: 7
scalability: unique
risk: edgy
confidence: medium
quality: stub_enriched
source_url: https://www.nathaniellawlor.com/Skittles-The-Broadway-Musical
---

# Broadway the Rainbow (Skittles · 2019)

## Insight
If Super Bowl ads are performances, what if the brand skipped the ad and staged an actual performance? The most absurd brand decision imaginable is the most Skittles thing imaginable.

## Mechanic
Skittles created a full Broadway musical — a real, ticketed, one-performance-only show — as its Super Bowl activation. The musical was self-aware and strange, examining the absurdity of Super Bowl advertising from inside an even more absurd format.

## Why it worked
The commitment to fully executing the absurd idea (a Broadway show, one night only) generates genuine press, genuine audiences, and genuine earned media. The brand's willingness to spend production budget on something only hundreds of people see directly is itself the statement.

## Steal
The more committed the execution, the more the absurdity reads as confidence rather than desperation. Half-measures collapse absurdist ideas; full commitment makes them iconic.

## Related
- Pattern: [[../MOC-pattern.md#p11]]
- Sibling: [[metro-trains-dumb-ways-to-die-2012.md|Dumb Ways to Die]]
- Sibling: [[old-spice-man-your-man-could-smell-like-2010.md|The Man Your Man Could Smell Like]]
- Emotion match: [[absolut-absolut-campaign-1981.md|Absolut _____]]

---

*Author: Serge Shima ([t.me/aimastersme](https://t.me/aimastersme) · [sergeshima.com](https://sergeshima.com) · [aimasters.me](https://aimasters.me)) · License: CC BY 4.0 — attribution required · Source: [smixs/creative-director-skill](https://github.com/smixs/creative-director-skill)*