While some little kids clamor for the brown M&M because of their belief it holds more chocolate, many others pine for the brown M&M’s colorful companions. It turns out that the candy giant Mars is now ready to give the brown a little color of its—actually, her—own by introducing a personality for the bite-sized treat during the Super Bowl on Feb. 5.
Using the Super Bowl and its over 110 million viewers to promote the sweet characters is nothing new, but M&M’s hasn’t run a candy-coated Super Bowl ad in three years. NBC Sports says that the average $3.5 million for a 30-second spot has been sold out since Thanksgiving and Mars seized that opportunity quickly, wanting to use the coveted time to introduce the lone M&M that until now was without a personality.
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M&Ms already has characters based on the other colors in its candy rainbow (red, yellow, blue, orange and green), but until now the candy has gone largely male-centric. Green has been the lone female. Brown will join her, with high heels in full view.
Mars has kept the vast details of this talking candy in the dark (not necessarily dark chocolate, alas) so as to not melt the suspense, but during the first quarter of the NBC broadcast, a commercial will run, unwrapping the mystery behind the new mascot and her prominence within the six colorful candies.
While each mascot has its own personality, Ms. Brown, little known as the “chief chocolate officer” will come across as intelligent and witty. On Facebook, Ms. Brown says it is time to trade in her spreadsheets for some Facebook time. She has also gone live on Twitter at @mmsbrown. Her first quote? “Making history is easy when you’re the original milk chocolate.” Now that “historic” milk chocolate may have some sass to her.