M&Ms lose all color

[tommy]

would you eat a white M&M? here.

[Mabelline]

That is a vile heresy! I don't want any m&m's that look like medicine.

[Jason Perlow]

They taste the same. JHlurie and I bought a bag of them over the weekend. In the darkness of the movie theatre you can't tell the difference between black and white anyways.

Web Site:

http://www.mms.com/us/bw/

[Pan]

Getting rid of artificial color is a good thing.

[jhlurie]

The white color is no doubt still artificial.

[Pan]

The black color probably is, too.

[NeroW]

What the hell?

[alacarte]

Black & white M&Ms sound stylish, like a tuxedo.

[Raynickben]

Very sophisticated.

(Did you have to open the bag with that screwdriver in the picture? I usually can just tear it open )

[Mabelline]

Not right!Not right! m&m's are kid food. I don't want sophisticated shoved down my throat. Give us a choice.

Edited December 30, 2003 by Mabelline (log)

[Pan]

Mabelline:

Seriously, I would email the company. They may not do what you want, but you're likely to get a courteous reply from them, and possibly even a coupon or something.

[Mabelline]

Aw, it'll pass. Besides it's all part of that colored m&m sweepstakes deal.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Jason - nice product placement of the eGullet mousepad in your shot!

[jo-mel]

If there are peanuts inside, I don't care what color they are. If they are just plain M&Ms, then their gimmick is lost on me.

[GG Mora]

Maybe they should run a contest for the new colors. You know, something like Martha Stewart araucana pastels. :choke: :gag: :strangle: :fall over dead:

[Jason Perlow]

Jason - nice product placement of the eGullet mousepad in your shot!

That's actually the Fat-Guy.com mousepad.

[Brad Ballinger]

Not right!Not right! m&m's are kid food. I don't want sophisticated shoved down my throat. Give us a choice.

This is an attempt to make valid point, but I wonder if it's misguided. It appears as if the campaign (sweepstakes and all) is targeted toward adults, to be sure. I would guess that the company has some pretty good market research that shows more adults than kids eat M&Ms. I know I eat more now than I did as a child.

[Stone]

They look like mints.

There are some interesting legal issues with that contest, however. A lot of state attorneys general were investigating companies that ran sweepstakes where the odds of anyone winning was impossible. For example, if McDonalds claimed that it would give away $1 million to someone who got a certain game piece, but then shipped the winning game piece to the McDonalds in Ulan Bator. I think some legislation was passed to deal with the problem. Six winning bags in 100 million? What are the odds that anyone will get one and know what it is?

[Rachel Perlow]

There's my screwdriver!

[fifi]

This is absolutely brilliant marketing. These guys are using something as simple as color to get a buzz going. I remember when they added blue. Everyone was talking about how that was just WRONG. But... Everybody was talking about it. And, I have to admit, I had not thought about M&Ms until then and I bought a few bags to put in the candy jar on my conference table. I will probably buy some of the black & whites, too. It is a good conversation ice breaker. BRILLIANT. Duh... We are talking about it here.

[Mabelline]

I wonder what's going to happen to Red And Yellow on the commercials.Maybe they'll go to jail and have to wear stripes?

[Random Alias]

You've always been able to custom order a variety of colors --including black and white.

Get yer custom colors here

.

[cakewalk]

Mabelline:

Seriously, I would email the company. They may not do what you want, but you're likely to get a courteous reply from them, and possibly even a coupon or something.

When I was about 15 I remember a friend of mine went on a rant because M&M's always advertised, "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" -- and of course the stuff always got all over your hands. So she wrote to them asking how they could advertise like that when it was obviously so untrue. And they wrote back a very nice letter saying that their advertising slogan was "M&M's MILK CHOCOLATE melts in your mouth, not in your hands." The stuff that was melting in her hands was the candy coating, not the milk chocolate.

It was a very polite letter, but they didn't send any coupons and not even a packet of M&M's.

Re the black & whites: are the black ones the same as the chocolate ones they have now (which are brown), or are they actually black, like licorice?

[Suzanne F]

This is absolutely brilliant marketing. These guys are using something as simple as color to get a buzz going. I remember when they added blue. Everyone was talking about how that was just WRONG. But... Everybody was talking about it. And, I have to admit, I had not thought about M&Ms until then and I bought a few bags to put in the candy jar on my conference table. I will probably buy some of the black & whites, too. It is a good conversation ice breaker. BRILLIANT. Duh... We are talking about it here.

BINGO!!!!! Fifi has gotten it exactly right.

Plus: think of all the folks who will be so upset that they will go out RIGHT NOW and buy up all the M&Ms they can. Falling right into the hands of the marketeers.

[bilrus]

Edit - Never mind. I must not be awake this morning.

Edited December 31, 2003 by bilrus (log)