M&M's — BrandWiki

M&M's

M&M's is the brand name of a color-varied sugar-coated, dragée chocolate confectionery made by the Mars Wrigley Confectionery division of Mars Inc. since 1941. The confection consists of a candy shell surrounding a filling that determines the specific type or variety. Each piece has the letter "m" printed in lower case in white on one side. They are produced in different colors, some of which have changed over the years.

The original confection of this brand had a semi-sweet chocolate filling that upon introduction of other varieties, was branded as the "plain, normal" variety. The first alternate variety to be introduced was the Peanut M&M in 1954. It featured a peanut coated in milk chocolate and finally, coated with a candy shell. It still remains a regular variety. Numerous other varieties have been introduced, some of which are regular widespread varieties (peanut butter, almond, pretzel, crispy, dark chocolate, and caramel) while other varieties are limited in duration or geographic availability.The confection came into production in the United States in 1941[2] and has since been sold in more than 100 countries.[1] It was conceived in partnership between Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie (representing the "M" and "M"), the son of the president of the rival

M&M characters

Early black-and-white ads for the confection in 1954 featured two talking, anthropomorphic M&M characters—one plain and one peanut—diving into a swimming pool full of chocolate.[55]

The first incarnation of the characters in CGI was a 1994 celebrity campaign that had the characters interacting with celebrities on which M&M candy color is their favorite. This campaign was created by Blue Sky Studios. Concurrent with the 1995 blue M&M campaign, the company introduced a second set of computer-animated "spokescandies" in their television commercials. The depiction and campaign of the M&Ms were made by Will Vinton in 1995. Vinton previously created the clay-animated California Raisins in 1986. Around the time he worked on CGI projects, he made the depiction of the M&M characters as more mature than most food mascots. These include the team of the cynical and sardonic Red (originally voiced by Jon Lovitz, thereafter Billy West),[56] who is the voice of the mascots for milk chocolate, peanut butter, and crispy. The happy and gullible Yellow (originally voiced by John Goodman, thereafter J. K. Simmons), who is the mascot for Peanut and originally was known as "Peanut" when that variety was first introduced. Other mascots include the "cool one", Blue (voiced by Robb Pruitt),[57][58] who is the mascot for Almond M&M's; the seductive Green (her personality is a reference to the 1970s urban legend that green M&Ms were aphrodisiacs)[59] (voiced by Cree Summer in most regions, and by Larissa Murray in the UK),[58] who is the mascot for both Dark Chocolate Mint and Peanut Butter, and the slightly neurotic Orange (voiced by Eric Kirchberger), who was introduced when the Crispy variety was first released and is currently the mascot Pretzel that debuted in 2010. As the mascot of Pretzel, Orange was joined by the second non-M&M mascot, Pretzel Guy, who "supports" the character and offers helpful advice who hates the idea of having a pretzel put inside his body.

Other mascots who were introduced, but no longer used, are Almond, the original green guy; Orange, a female peanut character; Chocolate Bar (voiced by Phil Hartman),[58] the first non-M&M character that always gets foiled or outdone by Red and Yellow by being melted, as M&Ms do not melt; and the Swarmees for the Minis candies, which are portrayed as destructive yet crafty troublemakers whom Red and Yellow are always trying unsuccessfully to contain after they accidentally released them in the product's initial commercial.

Female M&M mascots were introduced in 1995. Green was the Milk Chocolate mascot and Tan was the Peanut. Marketing discontinued Tan when they introduced the then-new Blue mascot. Green was the only female M&M mascot from her introduction in 1995 until 2012 when the company unveiled a new additional "spokescandy", Ms. Brown (voiced by actress Vanessa Williams), the "Chief Chocolate Officer".[60] During a Super Bowl LII advertisement, Red was transformed into a human after finding a lucky penny and wishing that he was inedible. As a human, he is portrayed by Danny DeVito.[61]

In January 2022, Mars announced plans to alter the design of the M&M characters. The company announced that the aim of this change was to make their characters more representative of a broader array of human personalities and personal backgrounds. Among these changes is the adoption of more casual clothing for the Green and Brown, both of which are generally interpreted to be female characters.[62] In September 2022, the company introduced a new Purple M&M voiced by Amber Ruffin,[63] who first appeared in a commercial singing "I'm Just Gonna Be Me".[64]

Referencing criticism surrounding the changes from conservative media outlets, the company teased a Super Bowl LVII commercial in January 2023 by making a fictitious announcement that the characters were being temporarily retired and replaced by comedian Maya Rudolph.[65][66] In subsequent teasers leading up to the game, Rudolph was shown hijacking the M&M's brand in her own image, re-launching them as "Ma&Ya's" candy-coated clams. Concurrently, the company characters were depicted as "exploring their outside passions", collaborating with other brands such as Cheddar, eBay, Snickers, Spotify, and Zappos.[67][68] During the eventual ad for Ma&Ya's, Red makes a cameo during its final scene alongside Yellow, holding up a sign reading "Help!" Following the game, the confection company then posted a "press conference" confirming the "spokescandies" had been reinstated.[69]

Below is a timeline of the official spokescandies from 1954 to the present day.

Color changes

The original 1941 colors of M&M candies were red, yellow, violet, green, and brown.[70] Violet was discontinued and replaced with tan in the late 1940s.

In 1976, Mars eliminated red-colored M&Ms[71] because of health concerns over the dye amaranth (FD&C Red #2) that was a suspected carcinogen and they introduced the orange variety. Despite the fact that M&Ms never had contained the dye, this action was taken by Mars purely to avoid any concerns by worried consumers.[13] Ten years later, a student at University of Tennessee, Paul Hethmon, started a joke campaign to reinstate red M&Ms that would eventually become a worldwide phenomenon.[72] The red M&Ms variety was reintroduced as a result and the orange variety that had replaced them were kept in production.

In Europe, the red M&Ms contains red dye carmine (E120, cochineal).[73]

Tan was replaced with blue in late 1995, following a promotion in which consumers were invited to vote on which of blue, pink, or purple would replace the tan M&Ms. Blue was the winning color with 54% of the votes.[74] Consumers could vote by calling 1-800-fun-color. Ads for the new blue colors featured a plain and an almond blue M&M character. Red and Yellow were depicted as trying to do takes in the commercial by painting themselves blue where they appear on stage with B. B. King singing the blues, but the filmmakers had to cut the scene as they were not using the correct shade of blue proposed. Another version of the commercial featured Red and Yellow holding their breath to resemble the new blue M&Ms where Steven Weber sees the three M&M characters, Red, Yellow, and Blue; and one more version featuring Weber asking the blue M&M whether or not it had dived into the chocolate pool.

In 2002, Mars solicited votes in their first ever "M&M's Global Color Vote" to add a new color from three choices: aqua (turquoise), pink, and purple. To help the colors get votes, Ken Schrader and his MB2 Motorsports team, who was sponsored by the company at the time, ran four paint schemes during the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season representing the promotion (one for aqua, one for pink, one for purple, and another one with all three colors on the car). Once purple won and was featured for a limited time, specially marked packages of the confection were released. Finding a bag of all purple M&Ms entitled American customers to a prize of 100 million Japanese yen (equivalent to approximately US$852,000), payable in U.S. dollars. Other cash prizes, numbering more than 50,000, came in euros, Australian dollars, Brazilian reais, Mexican pesos, and U.S. pennies.

Since 2004, M&Ms have been available online in 17 colors with personalized phrases on each candy on the opposite side from the "m".[75] Released around Christmas, these custom-printed M&Ms were originally intended for holiday greetings, but are now available all year round.

For the 2008 Valentine's Day season, Mars introduced all-green bags of M&Ms. This was due to common urban folklore that says green ones are an aphrodisiac.[76] The green ones were brought back for the 2009 season alongside the "Ms. Green Heats Up Valentine's Day" contest.

In October 2011, Mars released M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn exclusively in the United States for Halloween. These candies come in three candy corn inspired colors: white, bright yellow, and bright orange.

The following is a summary of the changes to the colors of the flagship (milk chocolate) flavor, the only filling manufactured continuously since the beginning of the production of the confection. From 1941 until 1969, each package contained M&Ms in five different colors; when red M&Ms were reintroduced in 1987, they were added as a sixth color instead of replacing any of the existing colors.