The most successful campaign in M&M’S history began with a single tweet.

The idea was born from a recent controversy–when some critics used the inclusive updates to our famous spokescandies to create division. Rather than avoiding the issue, we leaned into it–by announcing we were canceling the characters ourselves.

We dominated the Super Bowl discussion-–earning 25.2 billion impressions –as our fans made themselves heard and got the spokescandies returned. The epic, multichannel story brought new life to our old characters, and demonstrated our purpose: to be a brand that uses the power of fun to include everyone.

Since 1954, the M&M’S spokescandies have been the face of the brand. They have 99% awareness in America and are globally more recognizable than Santa Claus.

Over the years, we’ve updated the spokescandies and even added new ones along the way. But in 2022, we updated their personalities to bring them inline with modern sensibilities, and also updated their shoes - in particular we switched out Green’s boots for sneakers. Little did we know that this change would create a timely national debate. 8B earned impressions later, we realized how much everyone loved the spokescandies, but also how some people were using the updates to fan the flames of division not inclusion.

The US is our biggest market, equating to 50% of M&M’S global revenue.

For us to credibly show the world that we’re a force for inclusive fun and to continue growing in our biggest market, we had to show that the M&M’S spokescandies could unite the nation.

In the US, there is no bigger brand moment than the Super Bowl. The TV viewership alone delivers circa 100M viewers and along with all the media hype and consumer attention a campaign can reach every corner and demographic in the country.

It’s not only a big reach moment, but also a huge consumption moment too. The nation was forecast to spend $16.5B on Super Bowl parties, so to take an unfair share of those sales, we’d need to win the conversation leading up to and past the Super Bowl too.

Brand purpose has become the strategic trend du jour, and although good for the world, it was becoming harder to stand out and ensure our commitment and message was understood. For M&M’S to achieve its goal of including everyone, we need everyone to pay attention.

But unlike most brands, we had a set of brand assets that always captures the public’s attention - our spokescandies. In the US they have 99% awareness and around the world, they’re more recognizable than Santa Claus. Our fans are passionate, writing thousands of words of fan fiction around the spokescandies' private lives. Our insight was born from this fandom - that any change to them, would change the course of conversation in the US.

We’d already seen this once with the 2022 backlash, but this time, we were going to take it one step further than just changing them.

The idea was simple: flip the nationwide debate around the spokescandies on its head by canceling them.

With a controversial initial announcement that the iconic spokescandies would be replaced with Maya Rudolph, the brand leaned into the cultural moment and captured the world’s attention. Then, with everyone watching, the brand was transformed further through a series of increasingly absurd changes as the spokescandies searched for new jobs - culminating in a bizarre Super Bowl spot for Ma&Ya’s Candy Coated Clam Bites, that was quickly followed by a press conference where the spokescandies returned, for good.

The strategy of creating a weeks-long narrative even more outrageous than the original one made M&M’S an unavoidable part of the newscycle and social conversation on its own terms - helping bring to life a ridiculous story that engaged its fans all over, and eventually united America in wanting M&M’S and its spokescandies back.

M&M’S was the most talked-about campaign at Super Bowl LVII–securing 25.2B earned media impressions overall, 3x more than the previously most successful Mars Wrigley

campaign. Time Magazine awarded the campaign “The Biggest Stunt,” NPR awarded “The Biggest Culture War Head Fake,” and media commentary ranged from “iconic” to “savvy” to “well-worth studying.”

Consumers delighted in the spokescandies’ triumphant return and celebrated America’s collective rallying effort to bring them back in over 1 million engagements–making memes, reaction videos, and expressing joy over their success in the commentary on M&M’S owned social pages. In addition, Morning Consult ranked M&M’S as #4 Most Loved Ad for Gen Pop and #4 Most Loved Ad for Gen Z in particular.

Efforts resulted in the highest Q1 sales for the brand ever, but most important of all–it helped change the conversation around the brand and bring America together over a laugh.

America is often referred to as a melting pot. This is a land that welcomes more than 1M immigrants each year to become citizens and partake, as equals, in our great experiment.

However, in recent years the middle ground of acceptance and respectful discussion has been squeezed, and we’re seeing more polarization of opinion. This includes issues of gun control, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s rights to name just a few.

It was in this much-disrupted marketplace that we refreshed the M&M’S spokescandies in 2022. We made these changes to embrace more people and set the tone for a more inclusive brand. However, divisive commentators jumped on our announcement and twisted it to create more division between citizens.