Terrible M&M ad campaign comes to predictable end

Last night saw the M&M ad campaign begun earlier this year end with a Maya Rudolph Super Bowl ad and follow-up commercial

By Reid McCarter  |  February 13, 2023 | 4:51pm
TV Features Foods
Terrible M&M ad campaign comes to predictable end
Us too, pal. Us too. Screenshot: M&M’S

2023 had barely begun when M&M’s, a brand of chocolate candy, embarked on the most brain-deadening ad campaign we’ve witnessed in some time. First, the company released an all-women mascot package that drew inevitable ire from the Fox News crowd. Then, content that its trap had been sprung, it announced the retirement of its line-up of chocolate orb people in favor of new spokesperson, Maya Rudolph. Other brands suckled onto the publicity teat distended like a boil from the effort as the deeply cynical, deeply stupid culture war carried on toward the outcome we all saw on the horizon: A Super Bowl ad starring Rudolph that, after it aired last night, was followed up with the mascots reinstated and order restored to the world of Brands.

M&M’S Super Bowl 2023

The punchline on this soul-weakening, month-long joke sees Rudolph make her public debut as the representative of “candy-coated clam bites.” The commercial includes a song, people making faces as they try the new formula, and the red M&M popping up toward the end with a sign that reads “HELP!”

Soon afterward, the second half of the marketing plan was launched through a follow-up commercial, this one reassuring a troubled world that the M&M’s mascots are now “back for good” and that—no really, guys!—the whole clam bite thing was a bit. The chocolate creatures take questions at a press conference and a new slogan promises that M&M’s are transcending partisan politics. They are now “for all funkind.”

They’re back for good

The commercial puts everything back in place. The orange M&M once again suffers from an anxiety disorder as a fun quirk, the red M&M is a smirking rascal, and the purple and green M&Ms are wearing whatever kind of shoes the internet needs them to wear in order to find them sexually enticing. Thank god.

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