Skittles speeds up ad to meet Gen Z's video consumption habit

Skittles has launched a video in China with pacy scripts to meet the video consumption habit among Gen Zs in the country.

In the video, the main character uses about only five seconds to finish reading the scripts. He said, "This is a Skittles commercial. I know you're in a hurry. So we’re 32 times faster. Skittles! Red, orange, yellow, green, purple candies. Five colours and five fruit flavours. Yummy! You’ve talked so fast, what will you do with the rest of the time? Speed up the rainbow, taste the rainbow!"

Launched on Douyin in April, the ad also features the main character with a quote to add more fun into the entire script, "If we do everything faster, how will we spend the time saved?"

According to DDB China, the video pays heed to shorter attention spans and viewers’ tendencies to fast-forward through video content. The agency said it is the norm to browse content at twice the speed. Moreover, they typically decide within three seconds whether to watch a video, while communicate in acronyms, prefer summaries of movies on TikTok, and pay money to skip ads too. With these characteristics, the agency believed that it was difficult for brands looking for airtime among a younger audience in China.

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“Nowadays, it seems like everything in life can be done faster. People watch video content at twice the speed, they want movie recaps in three minutes, make-up tutorials in four steps, and abs in five days! With this campaign, we’re leaning into this behaviour to give our fans faster ads too," said Awing Chen, executive creative director for Shanghai and Guangzhou at DDB China Group.

On Skittles' official Weibo, some netizens praised the ad's creativity and answers the final question in the ad. For example, a netizen said, "We will definitely eat Skittles during the time saved." Another netizen said that the creativity in this is was good, while he or she will use the time saved to praise the brand's employees responsible for the ad.

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