It probably sounded like a compelling promotional gimmick on paper. Early this year, privately held Mars replaced its colorful M&M chocolate candies with black and white as a way to spark some excitement for the new, brighter colors to come. Did anyone really care?
It seems as if the marketing effort melted in your mouth -- not in your head. While the candy maker bought up chunks of ad time in General Electric's (NYSE:GE) popular Thursday night lineup on NBC to re-launch its colored chocolates, it probably won't be remembered as an ad campaign for the ages.
I mean, everyone knows that it takes three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll (NYSE:TR) pop. Hershey (NYSE:HSY) has everyone singing the "Give me a break" Kit-Kat jingle or waxing nostalgic over the peanut butter meeting chocolate ads for Reese's. But will we remember the doctored Wizard of Oz footage or the plain packaging? Probably not.
Five years ago, we singled out Mars as one of the companies that we would love to see go public. Some of those -- like UPS (NYSE:UPS) and World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE:WWE) -- went on to trade in the open market. Mars remains an attractive company, but that could be partly why it may never go public. M&M's aren't a fad; the lettered candies have sold briskly since the 1940s. Mars also has a broad product line including Uncle Ben's rice and Pedigree pet food.
These are steady, cash-flinging vehicles that don't require a ton of research and development to improve on. So maybe if I let out a yawn upon finding that the color had returned to M&Ms, it's just that to me the company never lost its bright hues to begin with.
Do you disagree? Were you hanging on every marketing moment for the colors to return to your favorite M&M flavors? Is Willy Wonka the coolest ever? All this and more -- in the Give Me all the Chocolate!! discussion board. Only on Fool.com.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz only managed to eat the original colored M&M candies during this black and white promotion. He does not own shares in any companies mentioned in this story.
