Marshawn Lynch genuinely loves Skittles and the confectionary brand has returned the love with a new list building campaign contest built around a limited edition, personalised packaging initiative based around the player.
The limited edition ‘Marshawn Pack’ comes appropriately in an Oakland Raiders silver and black colour scheme and features Lynch’s photograph and signature on the front.
Indeed, this personalised packaging for the player known as BeastMode is so limited that the brand isn’t currently planning to put them on sale to the general public.
The new packaging debuted ahead of the start of the upcoming 2018/19 NFL season on 21 August via a digital and social campaign fronted by the spot starring the Bay Area running back receiving his own personal stash of Skittles.
The vide sees Lynch open a shipping crate full of his favourite candy and then diving into a pile of his personalised packaging.
“This is huge” says Lynch to an offscreen figure, “My face is on this pack of Skittles. This is dope” he says with genuine glee.
The initiative is also amplified by the player himself on his own channels.
YesLawd!!! https://t.co/VySxi4rFWE https://t.co/umGtOTQQvf #thanksskittles
— Shawn Lynch (@MoneyLynch) August 21, 2018
While the player’s personalised Skittles won’t be available in stores, the player is appearing at a giveaway event in Oakland at the Colliseum,
TownBizzness. My @skittles pack is pullin’ into the coliseum 2morrow. Slide thru.#marshawnspack#beastmodeaskyb#yeslawdskittles pic.twitter.com/BWXSHqG8WR
— Shawn Lynch (@MoneyLynch) August 23, 2018
and the candy brand is using its stock of 2,400 Marshawn Lynch Skittles share packs (that number itself being an homage to Lynch’s Raiders number 24) as an incentivise to enter a list building consumer contest.
Can’t make it to Oakland tomorrow to get #MarshawnsPack? Don’t panic! Visit https://t.co/QYyUsVXREM for your chance to win two free packs. Don’t have internet? TIME TO PANIC! https://t.co/jKWoB0EY3l
— Skittles (@Skittles) August 23, 2018
Any Marshawn and Skittles fans wanting to get their hands on a couple of these special packs simply need to provide the brand with their name, age, email and mailing address at www.MarshawnsPack.com, for a chance at two packs of the candy.
Comment:
Sports marketers everywhere will be wishing that their own athlete ambassadors’ faces lit up the way Lynch does when he sees his own Skittles packaging.
The brand and the endorser may initially seem an unlikely combination, but the authenticity of the sport star’s feeling for the product is what makes this ongoing campaign series work.
Lynch’s love of Skittles dates back to well before he became a brand spokesperson.
While he was often seen eating Skittles on the Seattle Seahawks bench on game days and home fans rewarded him with packs when he scored,
the relationship actually began back during his time at the Pop Warner athlete academy.
Back in 2012, Lynch’s mother revealed the origin story of the Skittles-Lynch relationship on www.Seahawks.com back by explaining that she called the candy ‘power pellets’ and gave them to the young Lynch telling him it would help him ‘run fast’
“When Marshawn was 12 or 13, we’d go to his games, and I’d always have little candies in my purse,” Delisa Lynch said.
“Before the game, I would say, ‘Here Marshawn, come and get your power pellets.'”
Skittles signed up Lynch as the first member of its sports star endorser stable in 2014.
The relationship has not only seen him front various campaigns,
but also saw the brand launch a limited edition pack in the Seahawks’ blue and green colours to sell in the Seattle area ahead of the team’s Super Bowl appearance.
This campaign follows on from Skittles left field Super Bowl campaign earlier in 2018 (see case study).
Links:
Skittles
https://www.youtube.com/user/SKITTLESbrand
https://www.facebook.com/skittles/
Marshawn Lynch
https://www.beastmodeonline.com/
https://twitter.com/moneylynch
