US-based fun run event The Color Run has recently announced its 2016 UK dates, with confectionary brand Skittles as its presenting partner.

Branded ‘The Happiest 5k on the Planet’, participants run – or can ‘walk, skip or dance’ – their way around the five kilometre site while being covered in powdered paint at one kilometre intervals. An added feature this year, and one which well reflects Skittles’ brand positioning, is a Tropicolor zone. This will see participants covered in an array of tropical colours, corresponding to the Skittles rainbow theme.

Skittles has a history of sporting-based collaborations, perhaps most famously during the 2015 Superbowl with Seattle Seahawks players Marshawn Lynch. Capitalising on Lynch’s liking of its sweets, Skittles created a special ‘Seattle Mix’ edition of the product. This was as well as the securement of a lucrative half-time advert and a charitable donation of $10,000 for every touchdown Lynch scored in the Superbowl final.

Skittles’ original colourful motif will also be unified with The Color Run’s branding by ensuring that the run’s verbal brand identity is influenced by a rainbow theme. ‘Taste the Rainbow’, which has long been the Skittles tagline, is echoed through signs woven throughout the Color Run course, urging participants to ‘Sweat Rainbows’.

For more information on The Color Run event, visit http://www.thecolorrun.co.uk