In 2022, we (unintentionally) broke the internet. As part of a brand refresh which M&Ms hoped would convert its strong brand love into more sales, we announced a new pair of shoes for one of our beloved spokescandies. And the nation was utterly outraged. So in 2023, we decided to have a little fun; afterall, M&Ms is a brand that exists to bring more fun into the world! We designed a campaign that would lean right into the outrage, and fan the flames even further.

What was clear was the love that America had for M&Ms spokescandies. So what if we pushed things just a little bit further and got rid of the candies entirely?! We suspected this would remind people of exactly what they were missing, and translate into more sales. And spoiler alert: we ended up being right!

We crafted a plan that would do just that - we’d give the candies jobs with our media partners, and tell their ‘real world’ stories. By flipping the script of how media is used, we not only dramatized the hoax rise of a power-hungry spokesperson, but also created a parallel story letting people know that the spokecandies hadn’t disappeared.

So we got them jobs. Like, actual employment.

We secured sports-loving Blue a job at ESPN. We created for Red, a known lover of himself, an eBay page filled with his merchandise (a media first) - we sold out in the first hour. Brown is focused on women in finance, so we got her a financial correspondent gig at Cheddar News, and made her the first animated character ever to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Yellow even tried his hand at becoming the face of Snickers.

It unfolded like this: we’d tell the story that our spokescandies had been replaced. At the same time, we’d orchestrate a parallel narrative of their new jobs brought to life through deep, organic-feeling integrations with media partners. We used media to make the entire thing feel sequential and cohesive for anyone who saw any piece of the drama.

We created 42 pieces of custom content with our media partners, which we rolled out sequentially alongside 300 total assets.

Oh, and we also redefined how a brand can use the Super Bowl. After airing “the game’s most unlikeable commercial” as Maya’s final hurrah, we disrupted the gameplay with a 5” bumper announcing that Maya was out and the spokescandies were back. Immediately following the Super Bowl, we held a faux press conference. And we used first-to-market technology to retarget anyone who may have missed the announcement that the spokescandies were back.

This disruptive, never-been-done media approach delivered exactly what we hoped - sweet, sweet sales. In fact, the highest ever Q1 sales in M&Ms’ 82 year history.

And the good things kept coming; the native content on People exceeded both its performance KPIs with an ER of 12.16%, 3.7x the benchmark, and average time spent of 1.5 minutes (+61% above benchmark). The campaign notched 6,400 earned media placements, racking up 25.2 billion earned impressions – over 4x the average for the Super Bowl. We sold out of Red’s eBay merch in under an hour - resulting in multiple unanticipated merch drops. Orange’s Reddit thread delivered the highest ever engagement with a branded prompt.

Of course, stellar media metrics and solid sales were exactly what we hoped for. But a whole nation filled with joy that our iconic spokescandies are back for good? Now that’s pretty sweet.