Mars Chocolate North America, the maker of M&Ms, decided to add a new flavor to their line of M&M products: the pretzel. For the ad campaign they choose to bring back the orange M&M as the spokesperson for the candy rather than the usual green and yellow M&Ms. The orange M&M is characterized as neurotic and afraid that everyone wants to eat him, which is perfect for the ad campaign.
The pretzel M&M ad campaign features Orange fiercely protesting when he discovers that he is going to have a pretzel placed inside him. The commercials are meant to be humorous and are targeted towards a younger audience. Because the combination of salty and sweet flavors is becoming a more popular trend in snacks for kids, adolescents, and teenagers, Mars has creatively used the "Hungry Eyes" commercials to attract a younger audience to the product.
One particular Hungry Eyes commercial shows Orange and a pretzel at a party being fawned over by both a very attractive woman and an unattractive man (Hungry Eyes). The pretzel and Orange are arguing because Orange does not want to be eaten but the pretzel simply states that he would prefer to be eaten by the attractive woman than Hungry Eyes.
Since the start of the pretzel M&Ms campaign salty snack sales have increased by 15% from 2007 to 2009. Seems like Mars made a good decision by pairing M&Ms with pretzels. They now have 8 different M&M flavors out including: peanut, peanut butter, coconut, dark chocolate, regular milk chocolate, dark chocolate peanut, dark chocolate almond, and of course pretzel. I can't wait to find out what they think of next!
This ad is hilarious - I can't wait to try them.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to have a very effective marketing strategy at Mars Chocolate. This particular ad is very effective in its usage of humor. I've never been all that crazy about chocolate-covered pretzels so I don't think I would be interested in buying pretzel M&Ms, but I can certainly see these ads capturing the attention of others.
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