I’m not really that big on M&M’s. I never have been. I have kind of a weird relationship with them. It’s love/indifference, really. They certainly wouldn’t be the first candy I reached for at the supermarket but a few times a year I’ll get a craving for them and just go nuts and destroy a whole bag. It’s too easy to scoop up a huge pile of M&M’s in my hands and knock out a bag (and I’m talking about the BIG bags not those ‘tear ‘n’ shares’) in a matter of minutes. That is, if I wanted to do such a thing…
Seen above is one of those typically heart-warming holiday commercials that brands like M&M’s, Oreos, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola excelled at during the 1980s. It was great marketing to make you feel like there could be no joy in Christmas, there could be no Christmas PERIOD, unless you were stuffing your face with their product. It’s as if Christmas was all about sitting around a decorated tree & roaring fire at night with your family slamming M&M’s down your throat by the pound. No wonder in this country we’ll happily eat our weight in McNuggets and Triple Double Oreos before even thinking about touching a salad. Salads just don’t scream “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” like a bucket of original recipe KFC.
According to Wikipedia my hours of research, the red & green “HOLIDAYS” M&M’s debuted the previous year in 1986. You’d think they’d want to highlight their seasonal candy shell but I see what they did here. The Holidays batch is going to sell no matter what but they’ve gotta keep pushing the regular brown, yellow, green, red, tan and orange M&M’s so they’re using Christmas to get you to associate warm fuzzy feelings with that bland collection (which I always thought was suited best for Autumn and shouldn’t have been used year ’round).
Of course, with the M&M colors these days, it looks like a rabbit came along and pooped in a batch of Skittles.
