Marketers Are Morons - M and Ms Edition

I was reading my Time magazine the other day and came across a very odd ad right near the front - premium (read expensive) placement! It wasn't for the typical type of product you see advertised in this serious news publication. It was for, of all things, M&Ms candy.

But there is something strange about it and I had to look closer to figure out what it was. You see, the Mars candy company is promoting its little melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hand candies as a corporate gift through its MY M&Ms program. Well, OK, M&Ms as a gift seems OK to me under most circumstances, but in this context?

Imagine if you just got promoted to vice president, as the ad suggests, and your company honored the occasion with a jar of M&Ms with the company logo on them? Is this really befitting your accomplishment? I think it's kind of cheap and demeaning to tell you the truth. What could you possibly say?

But there is so much more wrong with this ad.

First of all, the colors. Orange sunburst and deep blue? What is that all about? The M&Ms shown in the ad match - orange, blue and white. Seriously NOT your typical M&Ms colors, but maybe that's the point.

Next, the photo shows a tall, older white woman dressed in red - obviously "the boss" - congratulating an Asian woman who is standing next to an Hispanic woman who is near two hot studly white guys. Wait a minute! Where's the black person? All companies and all ad agencies ALWAYS include a black person to prove they aren't racist! Hmmm, could Mars, Incorporated be telling us something here? And if the whole idea is to give an employee some personalized M&Ms for a job well done, where are the M&Ms in the photo?

It appears this ad was either not thought through at all - of they over-thought it. Either way, it's artificial and just plain bad.

Lastly, Mars needs to take a punctuation lesson. You don't form plurals with an apostrophe. Now I know some people say when it's confusing and the "word" is actually letters (ABC, ICBM, M&M, etc.) that you use an apostrophe for the plural. But I don't think that "M&Ms" is confusing - although I admit m&ms is. But they aren't consistent with their usage, so I'm going to fault them. Just use M&Ms all the time and I won't complain any further.

I suspect what is really at work here is typical marketing cluelessness in the halls at Mars, Incorporated. A few years ago someone came up with a way to print things other than little letter "m"s on their candies. Of course nobody really cares because these are good to eat, not pieces of art. You grab a handful, throw them in your mouth and swallow. You don't stop to admire them and you couldn't care less what color it is or what it says on it.

But the powers that be want their investment to earn some payback, so they push the poor marketing managers to sell more personalized M&Ms. But...but...but...so they got with the advertising agency and came up with this horrible idea and are now spending millions of dollars to try and convince people to do it. But corporate America isn't that dumb. They aren't going to turn logoed M&Ms into the next big thing in corporate giving. Sorry...you ARE clueless and just making matters worse in the recoup-your-investment department.

"Congratulations, Bob, you've just been promoted to vice president of worldwide sales! Here's a jar of blue M&Ms with our logo on them as a token of our appreciation."

It's actually kind of funny if it wasn't exactly what the marketing idiots at Mars are hoping to make happen.