The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2022–2024
Skittles apologizes to 130,880 lime fans individually — Lime returns, sales +7.4%
DDB Chicago turned #greenapplegate hate into a 35-minute Twitch apology to every lime-lover — 136K+ viewers, +7.4% sales, 2024 Global Grand Effie.
Skittles (Mars Wrigley) · DDB Chicago
What it had to solve
In 2013 Skittles changed the green Skittle from lime to green apple, and #greenapplegate backlash lived under every brand post for nine years — memes, Facebook groups, Change.org petitions. Meanwhile the core Skittles line was losing salience in a category dominated by new formats and innovations.
How it works
When Skittles swapped the green Skittle's lime for green apple in 2013, fans revolted. Nine years of #greenapplegate followed: every brand post attracted lime-lovers demanding the original flavor back, amplified through memes, Facebook groups and Change.org petitions. The noise was a constant headache — and a living record of how much people cared about the product.
DDB Chicago's idea was to stop apologizing generically and make the apology itself the campaign. The team audited 130,880+ tweets, invited those wronged to opt in through a paid tweet, and livestreamed a deadpan corporate apology press conference on Twitch. For 35 minutes a Skittles spokesperson read out apologies one tweet at a time, breaking up the list with an old-fashioned overhead projector — the corporate mea culpa taken to absurd, sincere lengths. Lime was permanently restored.
The stunt was watchable because it was real: more than 136,000 unique viewers watched live, a new benchmark for Mars, with 24,000+ comments on TikTok content. The relaunch lifted dollar sales +7.4%, velocity +14.9% and lime mentions in social +162%, rekindling salience for the classic Skittles offering and winning the 2024 Global Grand Effie for Brand Content & Entertainment, Products.
Why it lands
- It treated complainers as customers to reconcile with, not noise to ignore.
- Sincerity mixed with absurdity made a corporate apology genuinely watchable and shareable.
- Individual apologies turned 130,000+ fans into campaign participants and unpaid spokespeople.
- Livestreaming made it feel authentic and let the lime community see itself — 136K+ Twitch viewers, a Mars benchmark.
- The idea was the product news itself: Lime's return was earned through apology, not a conventional launch.
What it did
The livestream drew 136,000+ unique Twitch viewers — a new benchmark for Mars — with 24,000+ comments on TikTok content. Commercially, the relaunch delivered a +7.4% lift in dollar sales, +14.9% velocity and a +162% increase in lime Skittles social mentions. The campaign won the 2024 Global Grand Effie for Brand Content & Entertainment, Products.
What you can take
Turn a decade of fan hostility into the campaign itself: a sincere, absurdly personal apology can convert complainers into the brand's biggest story — and bring the product back with it.
Since then
Lime was back in the pack for good, and 'Apologize the Rainbow' became one of the most awarded campaigns of its cycle, including the 2024 Global Grand Effie at Effie Worldwide's Best of the Best competition. DDB and Mars credited the campaign with restaging the core Skittles business — historic commercial success and rekindled salience for the classic offering — and it has since been cited in awards shows from The One Show to D&AD as a case study in making a brand's own mistake the creative territory.
Sources
- How SKITTLES Brought Back 'Lime' with an Apology Press Conference
- Skittles, 'Apologize the Rainbow' Case study
- 'Evolution of Smooth' Brand Campaign Wins the Iridium as the Most Effective Campaign in the World
- 'Evolution of Smooth' Brand Campaign Wins the Iridium as the Most Effective Campaign in the World
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