Skittles has taken a subversive view on the Chinese New Year tradition of the reunion dinner, encouraging young Chinese people to be honest and speak up to their relatives.
Traditionally families come together to celebrate the start of Chinese New Year by reuniting, and with many families living apart, it can be the first time they’ve caught up in a long time. Skittles believes this results in a series of embarrassing and probing questions for the younger family members.
The online video stars Yibo Wang, a celebrity that Skittles says enjoys dancing and candy, who plays the part of a younger family member who rebels against his uncle's questions, answering with a rap. To his surprise, the uncle raps back, creating a rap battle-style confrontation in which the two see more similarities than differences.
Skittles is hoping this message of honesty can bring together families, rather than divide as older family members mean no harm in their prying.
Shimin Ni, marketing director of Mars Wrigley China Fruity Confectionery CBU, said: “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.”
The campaign, created by DDB Guangzhou, will also use Yibo Wang to lead consumers to an e-commerce site, where he will “give out his personal belongings”.
The Skittles package is also turned into real estate for this campaign as the online video features four characters from “daily crush”, a Tencent game similar to Candy Crush. The packs have a QR code that leads people to the game on their phones.
