24 Jan Mascot Origin Story

The Fight for Pink

Back in the fifties, my boyfriend (at the time) was in charge of coming up with a mascot for M&M’s. Early ads from those days featured two anthropomorphic M&M’s (one peanut and one plain) driving into a pool of chocolate. But, I was the one behind their creation. My husband was, until very recently, still in charge of what we now call Spokescandies, but I was always the one gave them life. And, interestingly enough, the inspiration for them came from my own life. There’s Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, and Brown, and you best believe they all have great people behind them as inspiration. There’s been other mascots here and there, like the Almond, a Chocolate Bar, and others, but they weren’t created by me, so naturally, they didn’t last. Now, let me tell you who from my real life inspired me to come up with these iconic characters, and the everlasting fight for my dream one.

First, there’s Christoff—cynical and sardonic. We’ve been friends since we met at his aunt’s house when were seven and nine. We had music classes together, and he was always the guy that made other guys cry, just using his words. To this day, his mocking sarcasm is what he’s best known for. He inspired the Red M&M, who is the mascot for milk chocolate, peanut butter, and crispy M&M’s. Then there’s happy and gullible Yellow, Peanut flavored, which was inspired by my friend Veronica. There isn’t much to this story, but a fun fact about Veronica is that her whole family is allergic to peanuts. And just a coincidence with this sad story—my husband told me research consistently showed that yellow is the least popular M&M color. I wonder if I jinxed it…

The seductive Green is the mascot for both Dark Chocolate Mint and Peanut Butter M&M’s. If you don’t think dark chocolate mint is a sexy flavor, then we’re definitely not on the same page. And, yes, it’s my favorite. Of course I was going to base this character on me. Did you know that because of Green’s sexy, spicy personality, now people think green M&M’s are aphrodisiacs? Isn’t that crazy? I’m so glad I’m still alive to see this happen. The businesslike Ms. Brown, the “Chief Chocolate Officer,” was inspired by my sis. Goal-driven and ambitious, Victoria represents this character perfectly. She’s a traditionalist, a little obsessive compulsive, and likes things to be as they should. I thought she was the perfect muse to represent the Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate flavors.

The cool one, the Blue one, was inspired by my extremely hip and creative husband, Robert. It’s the mascot for the Almond M&M and because it is a unique, interesting flavor, I thought of him at the time of conception. Robert was a trendsetter, being on the cutting edge of things—and to me, that’s what the color blue represents as well. But, my husband wasn’t perfect. In fact, he was far from it. He was sophisticated, and cool, and in charge of the Spokescandies department, but I was the one with all the ideas. I always felt sad that I wasn’t getting the credit. I lived for those nights when he came home from work and told me all about the meetings he had during the day and how the rest of the team had liked my ideas. I made his life so much easier, and I only ever asked for one thing: a pink M&M. I wanted Phoebe, our daughter, to have her own girly, quirky M&M. But Robert always said it would turn men away because pink was for girls. Well, Robert passed away five months ago, and guess who the new Spokescandy is…