EVER WONDERED what a "rotten zombie" flavoured sweet might taste like? Well, this is the year where you can stop wondering and start tasting, as Skittles have announced that a special variety of sweets will be released in the UK this Halloween. Zombie Skittles will contain many of the classic Skittles flavours that most people consider to be a treat, but each bag will also feature rotten zombie sweets that are more of a trick.
The rotten zombie sweets will look just like regular Skittles on the outside, but the taste sensation won’t be like anything you’d normally find on the rainbow. The Skittles team have claimed that each person’s palate will respond to its flavour in different ways [2], but everyone will be able to identify the rotten zombie Skittle after the first chew. The other Skittles in the bag will be more conventional flavours:
• Blood Red Berry
• Boogeyman Blackberry
• Chilling Black Cherry
• Mummified Melon
• Petrifying Citrus Punch
This is not the first time that Skittles have played with colours and flavours to add a new dimension to their products. The brand released three limited-edition packs this summer [3]: Wild Berry, Freeze Pop, and Imposters. The former two are essentially the introduction of more summery flavours, but Imposters uses a more novel concept. Sweets appeared normal on the outside, but there was no way of telling which flavour would be on the inside.
The rotten zombie flavour in Zombie Skittles is an extension of this, albeit with scarier consequences. Some people have even described Zombie Skittles as a type of roulette. At face value, a casino game and a bag of sweets may not appear to have much in common, but Zombie Skittles introduces an element of chance and unpredictability that has always been present in roulette.
It is interesting how this game, first played in France in the late 1700s, has remained relevant in the 21st century. The development of mobile roulette [4] has ensured that the game is accessible to a wide audience, which is why the word ‘roulette’ is still frequently used as a relatable metaphor. Katy Perry, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi have all written songs titled "Roulette", each using comparisons with the casino game to describe distinctive situations.
Roulette may live on in more abstract fashion in popular music, but the nature of Zombie Skittles provides a more tangible recreation of the classic game. Waiting to see where the ball lands on a roulette wheel is similar to waiting to see what flavour emerges after the first chew of a Skittle; it’s too late to do anything about it, other than hope it works in your favour.
There is already a clear market for roulette-inspired sweets, with Revels acting as the ideal treat for those who like both variety and surprise in their snacking. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans have migrated from the world of Harry Potter to the muggle world, where normal flavours are mixed with less pleasant flavours [5] like vomit and soap.
So, why do people willingly seek sweets that simply taste bad? In these cases, sweets go beyond taste to become something that produces memorable moments shared between family and friends. Some bold folk may even want to prove that even the worst flavours can't taste that bad, although Zombie Skittles could be their toughest challenge yet. Skittles' merging of trick-or-treating and roulette in one packet is a clever marketing strategy for this Halloween.