Skittles breaks selfie record

What do you get when you put together Skittles, selfies, and Degrassi star Melinda Shankar? In confectionery company Wrigley’s case, a world record.

On Canada Day, 421 Canadians came together to break the Guiness World Record for most selfies taken in one hour. Shankar posed with fellow Canadians at a rate of five per minute to break the record.

The event is part of Wrigley’s Skittles Selfie program, which includes in-store displays and online promotions encouraging shoppers to take their own selfie and upload it to the site skittlesselfie.ca, where the photo is “skittleized” and can be shared on social media.

Dan Alvo, Wrigley’s marketing director, says the campaign is appealing because the selfie lends itself to a broad audience.

“Everyone can relate to this idea of a bit of quirkiness – it’s not exclusively owned by kids,” he explains.

Quirkiness and playfulness are certainly elements that come into play for many Skittles campaigns.

Their “Get Skittles Rich” campaign from last fall rewarded consumers with virtual Skittles for sharing videos, while their infamous “Touch the Rainbow” video series encouraged viewers to interact with the ad by touching the computer screen.

“Skittles is a brand that continues to do unexpected things,” says Alvo. “It takes a bit of the real and a bit of the imaginary and brings them together.”

The creative approach has worked well so far – Wrigley’s has the number one selling front-end candy item of the confectionery market. The reason, Alvo says, its because Wrigley’s takes a 360 degree approach to their marketing strategies, which means knowing the customer, understanding the retailer and using a combination of traditional and digital tactics.

“It drives sales at the store-level, so our retailers are happy,” he says, adding the interactive components of the campaigns keep customers happy as well.

The selfie campaign will continue throughout the summer, using in-store displays and amping up social media marketing. Alvo said as of a few weeks ago, company has already had thousands of fans submit selfies on their site.