M&M'sCopied

In January 2022 Mars announced a global M&M's commitment to a world where everyone feels they belong, and with it a redesigned brand. Design Week described the goal as showing that the button-shaped sweets belong to everyone.

The identity, by Jones Knowles Ritchie, centres on the brand's first custom typeface, built around an eclectic mix of weights and widths to bring a sense of fun. The ampersand, one of the more memorable logograms around, gets particular attention, and an expanded colour palette is meant to evoke the visual riot of pouring out a pack. The characters were given a refresh too, handled separately from the identity work.

The characters stole the story. CNN reported on the new look, and the Green M&M's swap from stilettos to trainers drew criticism from some quarters that the brand had gone woke. Early fan reaction on social media was muted, some asking whether M&M's risked losing the self-deprecating humour it was known for.

A year later the debate ended the characters' run. In January 2023, after Fox News host Tucker Carlson had attacked the changes as woke, Mars said it was indefinitely pausing the spokescandies and named comedian Maya Rudolph as spokesperson, starting with its Super Bowl campaign, as the BBC, NPR and AP reported.

The details were small and loaded. Adweek reported that Red would be less bossy, Orange would embrace his anxiety, Green swapped knee-high boots for sneakers and Brown traded stilettos for lower block heels. NBC News added that the characters' arms and legs now matched their shells rather than a tan skin tone, and that the Ms. and Mr. prefixes were dropped. Marketing Dive reported that the work involved an ad agency, a design studio and a PR firm, with a bigger ampersand meant to link the two Ms. FoodNavigator found Mars doing damage control on social media by the next day, with Green joking that her shoes had broken the internet.

That split is worth noting. JKR's packaging and type system are lively and well made, and the palette idea is genuinely good. But a candy brand turning its mascots into a values statement invites exactly the debate it got. The design held up better than the positioning.