Yes, dear readers, after nearly a three-month hiatus, I have returned. After Halloween of 2022 I was very busy between events to prepare for and carry out in December that I just decided to focus on all of that and keep up with my own mental health that I let this blog slip through the cracks. While I could make some kind of serious post about the importance of taking care of yourself and not letting every factor of the outside world bother you, there is something a bit more pressing on my mind this week: M&Ms.
Alright, perhaps M&Ms are not as pressing a matter to me personally as I would hope the first blog post after my hiatus would deal with, but I had it on my mind for what seemed like an unusual amount of time, so perhaps this is my way of coaxing it out of my mind. After complaints (near as I can tell, only from one network) about redesigns of cartoon mascots, the Mars candy company announced it was replacing its classic “spokescandies” with actress Maya Rudolph, and I, at least, have one question: why?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Maya Rudolph. She was among the cast when I first started watching Saturday Night Live, and it would bring me so much entertainment to see her make appearances in shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place, but replacing these mascots that have been around for over sixty years just because some people had a melt down over some updates animators tried? It wouldn’t have been cheaper to issue a press release asking who really cares about it? If I waited sixty years to change the pair of shoes I was wearing, people would think I was messed up in the head…I mean for reasons other than what my psychiatrist has heard. What truly baffles me about it is the backlash was about putting these mascots, who again have been around for over sixty years, in different style of footwear. Were they just sitting on the couch with M&Ms and thinking “wow, these really taste different now that they’re not in thigh-high boots,” or was it some commentary on the kind of footwear they wanted to see? A word of warning for everyone who for whatever reason thinks the way I just described; Maya Rudolph will most likely not be in the same type of shoe for her tenure as the M&M spokesperson.
Perhaps one of the reasons the Mars company decided to make this change was just to make headlines, and they fully intend to go back to the mascots after the executives feel that the people who complained moved on to other things. Get everyone talking about your candy so that on some level, the people who hear it in the news start craving the product. All of the free advertising they’re getting from this has to be lightening the burden on their marketing department. Maybe they intend to do something like what Planters did after they killed off Mr. Peanut in January of 2020, just to come back in a Superbowl commercial later that year. Perhaps then we’ll get the press release similar to what is written above, if that is indeed what happens. Regardless, the final word on the matter will be the same: It’s chocolate, get over it.