Behind the Curtain of Skittles' Broadway Show

In a stunt that broke last year’s Super Bowl ad-land roundups, candy-coated joy-bauble brand Skittles decided to eschew this whole ‘biggest television audience of the year’ babble and instead concentrate their efforts on making a commercial that would only ever be viewed by one person - namely US teenager Marcos Menendez. 

For this year’s endeavour, agency DDB decided to be a little more generous with the level of exclusivity... but not by much. Instead of creating a stand-alone ad, the brand instead premiered (if such a thing can be said for a one-night-only affair) Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical - an actual, real-life 30-minute Broadway show performed by a full cast and live band in front of a PAYING AUDIENCE at The Town Hall in New York City.

Written by Pulitzer-finalist playwright Will Eno and led by Dexter’s Michael C. Hall, The show “takes an absurdly self-reflective look at consumerism and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of brand advertising in our lives”, incorporating songs such as Advertising Ruins Everything, This Might Have Been A Bad Idea and This Definitely Was A Bad Idea.

We chatted to Ari Weiss, Chief Creative Officer, DDB North America (agency on the project) and Patrick Milling Smith, Co-founder, SMUGGLER (production company for both the show and accompanying promotional films) to find out how such an audacious idea came to fruition.

So, a Broadway show is an inspired way to follow up ‘Most Exclusive Ad’. Can you talk us through the early stages of trying to think up a worthy idea to hit that heady high?

AW: We were obviously haunted by the success of last year’s campaign, and that fear always drives you to push yourself out of your comfort zone. When we did a postmortem on last year’s effort, the only thing we wished we had done differently was make the game day activation more visible. Of course, we couldn’t have done that with last year’s idea, so we wanted to remedy that with whatever we were going to create this year. But why a musical? 

Skittles is all about disrupting the everyday. Brands, especially ones targeted at our demographic, keep trying to create content their fans seek out. We wanted to see if we could make something bigger than a 30 second commercial and if we could create content that people would actually pay up to $200 a ticket to go see. We figured, in true Skittles fashion, this should be a self-reflective interrogation of the role advertising plays on the biggest marketing day of the year. And we’d place it on Broadway because that’s the least commercial, most Skittles place to have that conversation.

Once the idea had been locked in, what were the first steps? Had anyone on the team had any Broadway experience?

AW: We had no Broadway experience whatsoever. Our first step was to reach out to Patrick Milling-Smith at Smuggler. Patrick and I have worked together many times, and every time we got together, he would nonchalantly remind me that he had won 8 Tony’s for producing the musical, Once. We needed an advertising expert and a Broadway expert and nobody knows these two worlds better. Then, Nathaniel Lawlor [Creative Director/Copywriter] and I had the pleasure of attending almost every show currently running on Broadway. We read hundreds of plays from The Drama Bookshop (which sadly has since closed). We’ve been drinking from the Broadway firehose ever since our very brave Skittles client greenlit this project.

PMS: Ari had the idea to try and put on a musical early last year and we sat down together to discuss the feasibility of it in August. Putting on a Broadway show is not the simplest of endeavours at the best of the times and I think our initial conversation was pretty focused on all the reasons it would be next to impossible to get up. Like any good idea that needs to earn a right to live it was about pulling together the different pieces to build momentum.

Michael C. Hall was one the first names on the list. He was wonderful in Six Feet Under and Dexter, and was also the lead in Bowie’s musical, Lazarus, last year.

We have produced a few shows for Broadway now and have had some especially good fortune in the musical realm, namely Once. Producing a show, much like producing anything good regardless of medium comes down to idea and talent for us. If the idea is brave and undeniable then you start building on it with key talent. If the idea is strong then it's going to attract the right creative talent to get involved. 

We’ve always focused our attention on trying to find strong concepts and then attract great directors and key talent, but as important as a strong idea is knowing that the creatives behind the idea also are strong enough and experienced enough to protect the idea throughout the process. That was especially important here and having known Ari for so long and having worked with him before was a big driver in being able to help champion the project and pull together a first class crew and team. 

When did Will Eno get involved? How did he help steer the project?

AW: Once Smuggler was on board, Patrick introduced us to Will. Will has a way of interrogating the usual and making it seem very unusual, which is exactly what Skittles is all about. And his plays are absolutely genius. He was the perfect match. 

PMS: Ari and Nathanial had written a very clear outline and had very clear ambition for what and how this project should be. Nathanial mentioned wanting to talk to a playwright called Will Eno, whom Brian Carmody [EP] and I happened to have worked with before on a TV pilot.  We called him up and he was instantly intrigued and came in for a meeting. Nathanial talked him through the outline of the idea and Will spent the reminder of the meeting telling Ari and Nathanial how strong their premise was and then telling them why they didn’t need to hire him. Nathanial and Will come from very different disciplines which makes for an even more interesting collaboration. They are arguably two of the best writers in their fields and there was a great degree of intrigue and respect for each other and their experiences. Will gave the project some theatre cred, a world in which Will is rightfully revered, which only further emboldened Nathanial to go for it. 

We wanted to see if we could make something bigger than a 30 second commercial.

When Ari and the team started thinking of actors that could also deliver on Broadway and also record an album for Spotify, Michael C. Hall was one the first names on the list. He was wonderful in Six Feet Under and Dexter, and was also the lead in Bowie’s musical Lazarus last year. He has an incredible range from a vocal as well as performance standpoint. It was serendipitous that Will Eno and MCH had a great working history and close friendship. Having Will on board definitely helped Michael feel more comfortable with the whole project. To this point, Michael had never done a marketing project or any sort of advertising so he was initially very reluctant to jump in. The whole project was a slight leap of faith for a lot of people involved and many early decisions were made from belief in the individuals involved and past relationships and trust.

The show seems to take a very pointed look at consumerism - was it cathartic to write or were you worried you were exposing the true evils of advertising to the world?

AW: Ha. Yeah. It was cathartic. But it was also honest and transparent. Everybody knows why advertising exists, and if you make it interesting and of value to people, they love it. Our demographic is incredibly intelligent, and we wanted to respect that intelligence. Of course, we’re advertising the entire time we’re doing this, so we wanted to do that with a wink that says to the consumer, if you want to play along with the joke, then dive in and enjoy..

PMS: I don't know if anything was being called out as evil, more just ‘called out’ in general.  It's a very fresh, fun and sharp observation of the world we live in. The show definitely has a strong meta quality but is also accessible and stands on its own feet as something that can be enjoyed by everyone. Definitely a cathartic experience for anyone in advertising, but my 7 year old son was also laughing his head off at the actor wearing a cat suit singing about how this was the worst idea and his career was over. The show is very clever but its success comes from not getting lost up its own smart ass. It’s witty, funny, original, and demanded truly great craft at every juncture. DDB wanted to write funny songs but they also did a deep dive on what makes a Broadway musical resonate and move so many people.  They had fun with the form but were also (extremely demanding) purists from a musical standpoint and had healthy respect for what resonates and is deeply enjoyable in musical theatre. The team from the theatre world are certainly best of class and it was great to see the stage set early on from the agency showing clearly how much they demanded of themselves and the clear ambition on this.  

Were there any unforeseen pitfalls along the way? What was the biggest challenge?

PMS: The biggest challenge that was slightly out of everyone’s hands was being able to get a theatre on Broadway. The new season on Broadway is starting and so pretty much every theatre already has their new shows loading in or is deep into tech and rehearsals.  The rest of the houses have pre-existing shows that are still running.  Everyone was very clear that it was a Broadway house or bust. In November we finally got confirmation that we had a window of availability at Town Hall and the client jumped on it.

It would have been really disappointing if we had hyped a show that did not earn its own right to exist.

AW: Every day was a pitfall. I kid. Kind of. When you’re doing something that you’ve never done before, every day is a massive learning experience. This whole thing was one massive challenge, but I’ve never learned more from a smarter and more dedicated group of individuals. I am eternally grateful for this experience.

How did you feel pre-show?

PMS: Pretty tense. Very tense in fact. I felt like the overriding idea and project had already been a massive success regardless of what the actual show was like but then it would have been so depressing if no one liked the show. There is so much rubbish in the world that is hyped up in our industry already. I feel like we question the necessity or impact of so much of the work that gets produced in advertising so it would have been really disappointing if we had hyped a show that did not earn its own right to exist. The show was excellent. It was a rarity and a true joy to see all the pieces, the intention, talent, craft and creative expression all hit the right notes at the right time in the right place. Really a highlight for us all at SMUGGLER. It felt very pure, beautifully built and totally bat shit crazy in the best of ways.  

AW: I thought I might throw up.