What have they done now? I heard the little character candy M&Ms were refurbished and had to see the difference. Having a bit of advertising background I was curious to see what 21st century technology were going to do to cartoon candy?
As you can see above, here is the ‘before’ and ‘after’. Can you tell the differences?
From what I remembered, food advertising is difficult. Children’s cereal had cartoon mascots who were pirates or birds or cave men or that big tiger, but the food itself never talked (except Snap, Crackle or Pop). Vegetables had a happy green giant. Pork products had dancing pigs going off to be slaughtered but most food is just food.
Photographers have horror stories of trying to capture an image under hot lights that will make the viewer believe it would be mouth watering to eat without the aroma to entice the purchase and consumption of the food.
M&Ms were my favorite candy growing up. “Melt’s in your mouth, not in your hands” was the slogan. Milk chocolate in a colored candy shell was a sugar rush treat. My mother would take a few of the pill-sized candy and put them all around the house to me to find as a surprise. When I found enough pieces, I would pile them up on the dining room table, separate them by color and they would be different armies. The original colors were red, yellow, green, violet and brown. In the early 40’s the violet was changed to tan (light brown). The battles were determined by how many colors could attack other colors. The losers would be eaten.
Without a real sweet tooth, I got away from sugar and never acquired a taste for pies, cakes or cookies. Was fond of chocolate pie until it made me sick and I never went back.
So this new advertising campaign enticed me into the candy aisle. The section held my favorite candy bars (3 Musketeers, 5th Avenue, Payday, Mr Goodbar, Snickers, Baby Ruth and even a Chunky) that I purchased across the street from my middle school at a gas station. No candy bars had faces or even mascots.
The MARS candy section had bags of M&Ms in a variety of colors and sizes. From my childhood, this simple candy has changed. There are different sizes, different fillings and even different colors. In my candy battles who would have won between the giant peanut M&Ms versus the dwarf mini M&Ms? There are pastels colors in the spring and Halloween colors are orange and black. There now are ‘blue’ M&Ms. There is no other food that is blue?
One other M&M story to sweeten the deal is in the now debunked Sears store on Broad Street was a candy counter. Just like the movies it had candy bars, soda pop, popcorn and a giant window of M&Ms. The clerk, who was usually a sweet high school girl, would scoop the amount of M&Ms requested, weight it on a scale then charge you a price. One day my group decided to stop by and get some candy. The girl was particularly cute that day. The first person stepped up and asked for 8 oz. of M&Ms, but only the ‘red’ ones. She probably thought it was a fraternity hazing trial and went along with the prank. The second persona stepped up and asked for 8 oz. of M&Ms, but only the ‘green’ ones. Under the entire snickering episode, this sweet girl is picking through the glass bubble full of M&Ms hand picking only the green ones.
We only did that once, but it was an ongoing joke for years to come. We all know the red ones taste the best.
Back to the original question about the redesign of the M&M characters, can you tell the difference? They all look the same to me. The shoes are the same, the expressions are the same and they still wear the three-finger gloves. The brown M&M still looks like a stern schoolteacher and the only one wearing glasses. The orange one is still frantic. The blue one still looks like the cool lone and the red one is assured. The green one is still sassy with lipstick but without eyelashes and sneakers instead of heels (thought the brown one still wears heels?). None of them wear hats.
My question with all the diversity awareness, why are all their limbs Caucasian? The brown one does seem to look a bit darker, but it looks more like hosiery than skin tone. No oriental, indigenous, migrants, Latino, or LGBTQ representation (except they don’t have any genitalia). If these little colored characters are suppose attract the consumer, will they be going the way of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben?
I got a bag of peanut M&Ms and dark chocolate M&M and I’m done with sugar for the year.
Do these characters have names?
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