In June 2025, Skittles launched “Ink the Rainbow,” a community-driven, cross-channel, immersive, and interactive campaign that came to life on the day of Toronto’s iconic Pride Parade. By transforming moments of self-expression into shared visibility and lasting cultural impact, Skittles redefined what it means for brands to show up as allies of the 2SLGBTQI+ community.
The objective was to create a high-impact experience at the culmination of Pride Month that honored queer identity while amplifying voices across both physical and digital spaces. Skittles set out to design an activation that invited direct community participation, connected personal expression with tangible social impact, and elevated queer creators onto the largest stage possible.
The goals were threefold:
To reach audiences in both digital and physical environments, Skittles harnessed the power of the TikTok Out of Phone program, a media solution that extends the platform’s most engaging content into the physical world. Bringing TikTok content into Toronto’s Sankofa Square enabled Skittles to connect the immediacy of the street-level activation with the collective storytelling of the platform’s community.
At street level, “Ink the Rainbow” unfolded over three days with a branded tattoo pop-up, the first mobile studio of its kind in Canada, inviting Pride attendees to mark the occasion with temporary tattoos inspired by queer creativity and expression. Each tattoo unlocked a $1 donation toward restoring rainbow crosswalks in cities across Canada, directly linking joyful self-expression to community impact.
To build widespread awareness, national media relations were conducted, offering interviews with Skittles’ Rainbow Rep Travis Myers, who spoke to his role and the importance of protecting and preserving symbols of Pride.
2SLGBTQI+ creators were invited to document their experiences in the activation space, capturing content that reflected the joy and solidarity of Pride. These creator-led TikTok videos were then amplified in the physical world, projected on Canada’s largest digital billboard at Toronto’s Atrium on June 29, coinciding with the city’s Pride Parade. This convergence of digital storytelling and large-scale OOH visibility gave creators and the queer community a powerful stage in the heart of the city.
By harnessing the power of TikTok creators, extending their voices through the Out of Phone program, and amplifying them on Canada’s largest billboard, Skittles delivered an activation that was both intimate and monumental. The approach positioned allyship not as a statement, but as an action, transforming tattoos into donations, creators into billboards, and Pride into a city-scale platform.
The campaign delivered both cultural and commercial impact, distributing over 13,000 samples throughout the weekend and seeing over 27,000 website visits throughout Pride. On the ground, the Atrium screen generated over 614,000 impressions in a single day, amplifying Pride’s visibility at its peak. Online, the TikTok creator videos have generated more than 14 million views to date, sparking conversations and extending the reach of the activation far beyond Toronto.
As a result of the earned outreach, Skittles’ Pride activation was featured in over 25 media stories, generating over 6 million earned impressions. Coverage included attention from national press, including Media in Canada, which featured the activation for its creative integration of creator-led storytelling with out-of-home innovation.
“Ink the Rainbow” redefined what experiential media can be. It demonstrated allyship in action, translated into an experience that was both intimate and monumental. This Skittles campaign pushed the industry forward and delivered a Pride moment that continues to resonate well beyond Toronto.
