• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Skittles is swerving around the traditional Super Bowl media play, opting for an experiential stunt it hopes can get noticed –without paying for an in-game slot. The brand will dispatch actor Elijah Wood — in a furry three-legged creature costume — to perform the full commercial live on a selected fan’s doorstep, with the whole encounter livestreamed across Skittles’ channels.

The activation, billed by the brand as a first-of-its-kind mashup of delivery, performance and livestream advertising, comes with a consumer sweepstakes: fans enter for the chance to have Gopuff deliver Skittles, along with Wood’s live performance. The premise mirrors the spots introducing the concept, where a snarky teen’s magical horn summons the strange creature, who arrives with candy and zero explanation beyond “he’s got Skittles.”

Ashley Gill, vice president of brand and content marketing for Mars Snacking North America, tells Marketing Daily the Omnicom-developed effort is “unmistakably Skittles.”

Skittles has earned that weirdness reputation the hard way. Nearly a decade ago, the brand pulled a widely criticized “umbilical cord” spot from the air after backlash — one of several surreal campaigns that cemented its place in oddball advertising culture.

“Skittles has built a long-standing reputation for showing up in culture in unexpected ways, and that history gives us a real right to play in weird, playful spaces where other brands simply wouldn't make sense,” Gill says via email. “But the goal has never been weird for weird's sake. The guardrails are clear: The idea has to be equal parts strategic, thumb-stopping and deliver an ‘escape from common sense.’”

Gill says the brand looks for ideas that feel “pleasantly perplexing,” contribute to the cultural moment and feel like something only Skittles could do. And while a Super Bowl buy would offer reach, she argues this experiential approach feels more “ownable.”

“While a traditional in-game spot offers scale, this approach creates cultural cut-through by transforming advertising from a passive viewing moment into a real-world experience,” she says. “By bringing the commercial to life outside the screen, we're creating something that feels personal, surprising, and inherently shareable.”

The partnership with Gopuff adds a relevant behavioral layer: the Super Bowl has become as much a delivery-and-snacks holiday as a broadcast event, and on-demand services have been chasing brand partnerships to differentiate from pure logistics players.

From a category standpoint, the move also reflects competitive pressure in chewy candy. Skittles remains the top brand in the segment, but Nerds Gummy Clusters has injected real momentum into the space and is returning to the Super Bowl with a more conventional buy. Against that backdrop, Skittles’ choice to zig experiential while a fast-growing rival zags broadcast feels less like quirk and more like positioning.

The livestream performance will occur shortly before kickoff, with highlights pushed across Skittles’ owned social channels.