History Advertising / Skittles

* PolkaDotDisease: In "Contract the Rainbow," the "Skittles Pox" makes people grow skittles on their bodies. Picking a skittle of a patient and eating is a surefire way to catch the disease.

* BalconyWooingScene: Averted in "Romance the Rainbow." The guy throws skittles at the window to get the attention of his love interest. The window is open and rather than anwering she contently munching away at the skittles that come in. Until she scoots over to let her mother have a bite. Then her father, then her grandmother, then a burglar, then the cop that came to arrest the burglar, and then a beaver. All the while the guy rhythmically keeps calling out to Cathy.

Then the millennium changed and with it, Skittles ads changed too. As mentioned earlier, modern Skittles commercials are avant-garde and sometimes [[DadaAd only recognizable as advertisements]] because they end in a picture of the product accompanied by the command to "Taste the Rainbow." There's the one starring sheep with human faces ("Blend the Rainbow"), the one where a yoghurt boy haunts the kitchen of a mansion ("Fancify the Rainbow"), the one where a telekinetic man takes off another man's hand ("Touch the Rainbow"), the one where a skittles tree grows out of a person ("Harvest the Rainbow"), the ones with a giant living tube sock ("Fizz the Rainbow"), the one where a rainbow gets tortured in the basement ("Rile the Rainbow"), and so on. A lot of them incorporate some form of {{horror}}, be that HorrorComedy, BodyHorror, SurrealHorror, or FolkHorror, and a good portion of those that aren't horror still manage to be [[UncannyValley discomforting]].

->''Taste the Rainbow''
-->--The iconic {{tagline}}

The original Skittles pack consists of five flavors: lime (green), lemon (yellow), orange (...orange), strawberry (red), and blackcurrant (purple). In the USA, lime has been replaced with apple and blackcurrant with grape. In 1989, the first alternative packs ("Tropical," "Wild Berry," "Tart-N-Tangy") hit the market in the United States and it took another decade for them to show up in Europe. In 1994, the iconic {{tagline}} "[[EverythingsBetterWithRainbows Taste the Rainbow]]" was created by D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. With a slight delay, every ad since has included this phrase and/or a verb variation like "Drain the Rainbow," "Believe the Rainbow," "Share the Rainbow" and "Fizz the Rainbow."

* PuffOfLogic: In "Believe the Rainbow," three teens sit on a rainbow and enjoy their skittles. One teen asks: "Hey, what if this rainbow doesn't exist and it's just in our imagina-," and then the rainbow opens under him and he falls out of the sky, presumably to his death.
* RapidAging: A man's lifespan is tied to a skittle-filled hourglass in "Warp the Rainbow." The more skittles disappear from the top half, whether by falling through or by being taken out, the more he ages. His roommate doesn't care and eats the skittles, watching the man age at a very rapid pace.
* RottenRockAndRoll: Parodied in "Rock the Rainbow." When [[Music/{{Aerosmith}} Steven Tyler]] enters the scene, he utters the line: "Okay, let's do this. I've got minds to twist and values to warp."

Skittles is a brand of pill-sized fruit gummies encased in a crunchy layer [[BroughtToYouByTheLetterS stamped with an "S."]] Its year of origin is given as 1974, but the identity of its inventor is a mystery which absurdity coordinates particularly well with the modern day avant-garde marketing strategies. All that is known is that Skittles originally was a candy product sold in the UsefulNotes/United Kingdom. In 1982, the Wrigley Company moved production to the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates. Mars, Incorporated purchased Wrigley in 2008, thereby bringing the "S"-candy and its possible design inspiration, the [[Advertising/MAndMs "M"-candy]], under one roof.

* GlassShatteringSound: In "Rock the Rainbow," [[Music/{{Aerosmith}} Steven Tyler]] has his portrait made out of skittles. Said portrait is alive and to prove itself to its owner it keeps singing higher and higher until it falls apart. Only its mouth stays in one piece and continues to sing.[[note]]In a funny turn of events, when this commercial was shown on a segment on ''Series/ThisMorning'' in the UK [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1iO5jWCSlc the commercial broke the autocue.]][[/note]]