Abstract
This Wikipedia project explores MARS, Inc. In particular, the project provides a critical discussion on the importance of community based contribution and the ways by which, individuals can make a unique difference in the way a company, brand, or service is viewed by the general public. The project highlights a marketing campaign that was implemented by MARS, Inc. in 2013, known as "Better With M." The project explains the reasons behind the campaign and why it was so impactful to the company, and to the world. The project also explores the recent changes that occurred with MARS, Inc. deciding to move toward using natural dyes rather than artificial ones in its product portfolio and how this has affected and will affect the relationship it has with consumers. The Wikipedia project seeks to communicate how what has often been viewed as problematic in terms of information being given to the general public, can be quite helpful.
Target Improvement Area: M&MS – Joint Marketing Campaigns Section
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%26M's
In 2013, M&M's launched the "Better with M" campaign. This campaign sought to get consumers to incorporate the candies into their everyday life. Specifically, the campaign displayed how delicious and fun the candy was and, its potential to make every moment, memorable and colorful. The campaign cost Mars, Inc. $13 million to do, and featured a variety of advertising including in-store displays, print and digital ads, television spots, and a massive cause-related marketing effort. To launch the campaign, Mars partnered with advertising agency, BBDO. The campaign also included a Super Bowl Commercial (ConvenienceStore News, 2013).
The campaign included facts on how M&Ms could be included in a variety of different and diverse lifestyles. Mars was able to effectively mobilize a significant demographics with intention of building relationships with every consumer. The campaign was seen as giving the chocolate candies popularity and personality. Customers were given the opportunity to provide their personality information in order to be matched with a particular color M&M. Mars brought the brighter colored candies to the forefront of the campaign with the hopes of speaking to the personalization of consumers, and making the statement that bright moments could be captured with M&Ms candies. The advertisements used in the campaign placed the candies with an extensive amount of leisure activities. This allowed consumers to see the value that M&Ms could provide to their daily life activities such as birthday parties and the like (Advertising & Society, 2013; PR Newswire, 2013).
The advertisements associated with the campaign were broadcast and created in both English and Spanish, and included several social media initiatives using the hashtag, #betterwithmms. The campaign's cornerstone heavily focused on assisting with the construction of Habitat for Humanity homes around the country, while simultaneously encouraging fans to volunteer at the various sites where the homes were being built. The campaign was observed as being one of the largest efforts associated with advertising that Mars had ever executed (PR Newswire, 2013).
Since the campaign was geared toward M&Ms changing the lifestyles of everyday individuals, each of the advertisements were personalized and used a particular product placement format. One of the more memorable campaigns that aired was the "Love Ballad" commercial. This particular one aired during the Super Bowl in 2013. With roughly more than 108 million Americans that were stated to be watching the football game, M&Ms saw it as a perfect opportunity to appeal to all type of people, with all types of backgrounds. The commercial featured the Red M&M, who sang the Meatloaf ballad "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)." In the commercial, the Red M&M interacted with a brunette and was shown to be helping her out in every way he could, but when the I won't do that part came on, he would be shown to be resisting the activities. The use of the red colored M&M brought the brand to life essentially. The commercial effectively utilized a combination of different activities including watching movies, shopping, going to the beach, and cooking in order to show that life truly is better with the candy. The campaign used the hashtag, and this furthered the image of the brand by displaying its unique integration of social media, and digital television (PR Newswire, 2013).
M&Ms hoped that the use of the various efforts would help to effectively communicate to consumers the need to buy the candies and have them in their daily lives. They wanted to boost the value of the brand through the showcasing its cultural and social value. In another advertisement associated with the campaign, the candy was displayed in a library setting. Each of the candies were stripped of their color, with the exception of a scarf that each held in its hand. The advertisement was a print one, and showed cohesion to the brand. The company felt that it was effective enough to be received by multiple audiences. The focus with the particular print advertisement was that the marketing team believed that each of the candies in their different colors represented a different type of individual consumer. In other words, each candy had a unique personality that the advertisement had successfully illustrated this. The brand identified that they have created this advertisement in order to articulate that signs had meaning concept (PR Newswire, 2013).
Another interesting aspect of the marketing campaign was that it allowed for a more interactive dynamic. Mars was committed to successfully seeking out ways to engage its customers through promotions, contests and digital advertisements. The objective was to ensure that consumer engagement and awareness was effective. They opted to put an emphasis on creativity in order to attract new customers and to keep those that had been long-time buyers of the brand through Internet strategies and campaigns. With the use of Facebook, one of the campaigns was that users were able to click on certain posts that they believed were interesting. Mars had tied in the campaign on Facebook with a cause related effort connected to Habitat for Humanity, so it was easy for them to leverage this to the eyes of the consumers. Through an engagement strategy, the Mrs. Brown M&M was able to effectually promote the brand as well as the Habitat for Humanity project (M&Ms Launches “Better with M” Campaign, 2013).
One of the many parts of the social media experience and M&MS is that the candies were interacting with the consumers rather than human beings. The company was noted as being the first to take significant and substantial advantage of that through both its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Outside of the campaign itself, each M&M candy has its own handle on Twitter and writes its own tweets. Mars has stated that they believe this gives new functionality with social media and engagement as the personalities of each of the colors comes across to consumers. With the campaign, the company was successfully able to connect with prospective customers and loyalists to the brand using the hash tag (Advertising & Society, 2013).
The Habitat for Humanity part of the campaign was stated to be one of the most impactful in the history of Mars, Inc. The brand partnered with Habitat for Humanity in order to promote the mission and vision of that organization. The idea was to illustrate how Habitat for Humanity could also make the lives of those less fortunate better. Through using that company's web page and the social media platforms, the cause-related campaign was arranged in a way to display the culture of the brand through civic, political and social participation (Advertising & Society, 2013).
The cause-related campaign that Mars created by working with Habitat for Humanity to create "M-Prove America" and "America Better with M." The "America Better With M" initiative sough to provide money directly to Habitat for Humanity through offering limited versions of M&Ms in red, white and blue. This was launched in May of 2013. The proceeds were stated to have gone directly to Habitat for Humanity. For the "M-Prove America" campaign, this initiative sought to help Habitat for Humanity obtain 1.5 million volunteers nationwide. The purpose was also to revitalize the brand by focusing on the customers who were fans of the candy. The initiative specifically used an incentivization methodology where Facebook app users could pledge up to a total of 8 hours to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity (Advertising & Society, 2013). The brand was able to effectively increase its name and reputation, and provide a substantive engagement for Habitat for Humanity.
Target Improvement Area: MARS – Consumer Relations Section
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars,_Incorporated#Removal_of_artificial_ingredients_to_food_portfolio
In February 2016, Mars stated that it would no longer be using artificial colors in each of its candy products. The company announced that more than 50 of its products would be affected in commitment effort to align with the changing preferences of consumers. The company along with more than 12 others has recently pledged to remove colors of an artificial nature from its products. While it has been said that the use of artificial colors in candy, and other products sold in the marketplace do not pose a threat to human health outright, the use of natural ingredients has grown substantially by the consumers that are purchasing in the marketplace. The company's CEO, Grant F. Reid, stated that "eliminating all artificial colors from the food portfolio is a massive undertaking and one that will take time and hard work to accomplish." The company wanted to assure consumers that the fun and vibrancy that has remained a staple of the brand for years, will not be altered in terms of colors or overall flavor (Bratskeir, 2016).
The company has anticipated that the new ingredient changes will take up to 5 years, with different formulations existing in various markets within that time frame, before the process is perfected. The company was not the first to recently announce that it would be changing the use of artificial flavors in its products. In 2015, food giant, General Mills proposed an initiative that noted that all of the artificial ingredients it was using in its products would be dropped by 2017. This meant a reformulation of many of the cereals, with alternatives that were more suitable to the palates of humans. A key aspect in that proposed initiative was that the cereal, Trix, would no longer have the blue and green colors forming a new iteration of the cereal (Bratskeir, 2016; Meier, 2016).
In a press release on the removal of the food dyes, the company wrote that
“replacing artificial colors across all our products is a complex task. We expect it will take about five years to develop the full range of alternatives that guarantee the integrity and great taste of the products you know and love, and to go through the process of obtaining regulatory approval for all new ingredients in development” (Cox, 2016).
There have been two different arguments presented about the use of artificial colors in foods. Many studies have shown that their use in food could be linked to illnesses such as ADHD and cancer. There has seemed to be an issue with the use of red 40, yellow 3, yellow 5 and yellow 6 and how they bind to the DNA in humans. Other additives such as Blue 2 have been linked to the cause of brain tumors in rodents and in 1981, Green 3 was found to be a direct link to bladder cancer. Given the fact that the company will be replacing the artificial dyes in its products, the company has also said that consumers should prepare themselves for the transition process in terms of special packaging and colors being used as to indicate that the changes have taken place. It has been said that the company is not likely to stop using coloring entirely, but that the use of artificial coloring will be going away (Cox, 2016).
Conclusion
This paper discussed the campaign that was undertaken by MARS, Inc. in 2013 identified as “Better With M.” The paper specifically sought to bring a substantial amount of information on its impact. The campaign was created in order to broaden awareness for the M&Ms candies, and Habitat for Humanity. MARS, Inc. hoped that consumers would come to identify that their lives could truly be better by purchasing and eating M&Ms. By partnering with Habitat for Humanity, the brand was able to successfully and effectively broaden its consumer base. The paper also discussed the recent changes that have taken place with MARS announcing the removal of artificial colors and dyes in its candies and confections. The paper explained why these changes have taken place and how long the corporation expects them to take. The paper cited a press release remark that the CEO of the company stated about the significant changes that will be made. The text associated with this particular paper was transferred to Wikipedia with the hopes of educating readers who happen to go to the MARS, Inc. page wanting to find out different information on the company and the changes that are taken place, as well as the marketing campaigns.
References
“Better with M” Campaign Analysis. (2013, April 14). Retrieved from Advertising & Society website: https://advsoc2013.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/748/
Bratskeir, K. (2016, February 11). Artificial Colors Being Removed From M&Ms, Skittles, Starburst And More. Huffington Post, Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mars-removes-artificial-colors-mms_us_56bc8f98e4b0c3c5505020ba
Cox, D. (2016). What Color Will M&M's Be Now? - Mars Inc. Removing Artificial Colors From All Candy Products. The Inquisitr News, Retrieved from http://www.inquisitr.com/2781825/what-color-will-mms-be-now-mars-inc-removing-artificial-colors-from-all-candy-products/
Mars, Incorporated. (2016). Retrieved from Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars,_Incorporated
Meier, A. (2016, February 5). Mars, Inc. removing artificial colors from candy like M&M's, Skittles. Retrieved from ABC 7 website: http://abc7ny.com/food/mars-inc-removing-artificial-colors-from-candy-like-m-ms-skittles/1189364/
M&M’S Launching 'Better With M' Marketing Campaign. (2013, January 13). Retrieved from http://www.csnews.com/mm%E2%80%99s-launching-better-m-marketing-campaign?sort_by=search_api_relevance
M&Ms Launches “Better with M” Campaign. (2013, February 6). Retrieved from What Mommies Need website: http://whatmommiesneed.com/mms-launches-better-with-m-campaign/
