Skittles unleashes CNY family rap battle campaign

Mars Wrigley China has launched an integrated Chinese New Year campaign for Skittles which focuses on better communication between family members during the holiday season.The central video ad for the campaign (developed by DDB Guangzhou) features Chinese celebrity Yibo Wang being chastised for his lifestyle choices by his traditional and seemingly judgemental uncle at a CNY gathering. The pair, joined by a group of cartoon music makers, then voice their differences of opinion via the time-honoured tradition of the rap battle.[embed]https://youtu.be/OkGhSgcvRZ0[/embed]In addition to the main video, Skittles has also produced shorter ads for mobile and social media, which Yang himself is sharing on his accounts, directing his fans to visit the Skittles eCommerce channel. The campaign is also encouraging people to share their CNY family experiences and plans on Skittles social media platforms.What's more, as part of the larger integration of the campaign, the animated creatures who appear during the ad are actually the signature characters from the Tencent mobile game “Daily Crush”, a similar game to the more renowned Candy Crush. Packs of skittles released during the campaign will be stamped with a QR code that customers can scan with their smartphones to play the game.DDB says that positioning the marketing campaign around the subject of awkward conversations with relatives, came from deeper insights they discovered about communication gaps between generations.Shimin Ni, Marketing Director of Mars Wrigley China Fruity Confectionery CBU, explained, “Skittles found that, in fact, the older generation don’t want to invade the young people’s privacy. They simply want to show their concern and interest to the kids they see so rarely. So we decided to create this exaggerated hip-hop conversation to encourage young people to speak out and share their thoughts with their elders, to deepen the mutual understanding between the two generations and ease the small embarrassing moments.”Last year DDB produced an ad similarly built around the theme of familial awkwardness at CNY, based around uncomfortable conversations at the mahjong table.[embed]https://youtu.be/cP4_0gSewXI[/embed]