The popular M&Ms characters have a new look

New York (CNN Business) — The M&Ms brand is undergoing a makeover.

The anthropomorphically shaped chocolate characters on the sweets have been revamped and the logo was retouched as well.

But the most noticeable change is seen in the six M&Ms characters: new shoes. Green has traded in his go-go boots for sneakers. Brown wears lower and more comfortable heels. Red and Yellow’s shoes now have laces. Orange’s shoelaces are no longer untied. And Blue’s shoes, though slightly changed, resemble what Anton Vincent, president of Mars Wrigley North America, described as “a bad version of Uggs.”

Mars Wrigley, owner of M&Ms, is looking to make the characters, particularly the female ones, more “current” and “representative of our consumer,” Vincent said. The revamped footwear is “a subtle sign, but it’s a sign that people really pick up on,” he added, noting that Mars gets a lot of feedback about the characters’ shoes.

The logo fit is also slight: instead of resting on one side, it sits straight up. The new orientation is designed to emphasize the ampersand (&). The logo was last modified in 2019.

The changes will roll out online this week and will be incorporated into the packaging of M&Ms and other marketing materials this year.

The changes can be subtle, but even small changes can help brands avoid going out of style, said David Camp, co-founder and managing partner of Metaforce, a marketing company. “Every brand has to continually reinvent itself to stay relevant.”

Best Gender Representation

M&Ms were first sold in 1941, and the characters burst onto the scene in 1954. Old M&Ms commercials featured Red and Yellow, representing regular and peanut M&Ms. In the late 1990s, new characters were added to the mix. Brown, the most recent addition, joined the team in 2012.

Over the years, the brand has switched between highlighting its characters more or less frequently, Vincent noted. Now, he’s putting them front and center.

Currently, there are two female and four male characters. It’s possible to add another pair of female characters to balance the ratio, Vincent said, but there are “implications” for the product itself. That is, M&Ms would have to add new permanent colors to their mix.

M&M’s packaging circa 2004.

The solution, then, was to give the female characters Green and Brown a promotion. They will have a more prominent placement in ads, aiming for “a little more gender balance,” Vincent said.

M&Ms is using these changes to try to signal its brand identity to customers, who are increasingly drawn to brands they think align with their own values. “It gives us a good platform to talk about the whole idea of ​​belonging,” said Vincent.

The company is also putting more of a “focus on characters as it relates to the total brand, and then building a platform for us to be able to advocate and talk about this idea,” he added.

Other brands have made adjustments to their logos or mascots to keep them fresh. One example is Quaker, who in 2012 altered his pet’s face with discreet plastic surgery. (Quaker is owned by Pepsico (PEP)). The changes included “removing her double chin and smoothing out the rolls and fat on her face and neck,” reported The Wall Street Journal at that moment. The new character’s shoulders are also more visible and his hair is shorter, to make him appear more fit, and his neck is longer, the newspaper noted.

Some brands like Uncle Ben’s and Aunt Jemima have recently revised their logos, mascots or brand names due to problematic and racist origins.