Good news: the unsexy green M&M is making a comeback! On Monday, M&M’s parent company, Mars Wrigley, announced it was indefinitely retiring M&M’s “Spokescandies” mascots and replacing them with actress Maya Rudolph. However, the company announced this New York Times on Friday that the controversial move was just a PR stunt and that the Spokescandies will indeed return at the upcoming Super Bowl.
“Rest assured, the characters are our official long-term spokecandies,” Mars Wrigley said in a statement to The New York Times. The mascots are on hiatus for now, but M&M’s Super Bowl ads will resolve the situation and bring back the Spokescandies, a company representative said.
The twisted story began about a year ago when Mars Wrigley renamed the mascot candies to become more inclusive and to reflect more modern sensibilities. For example, the green M&M was changed so she had shorter legs and no longer wore high heels. The redesign drew backlash from far-right pundits like Tucker Carlson, who criticized the changes as “awake”.
Although no changes had been announced recently, Carlson brought up the spokenscandies again in recent weeks. then on Monday, Mars Wrigley made his announcement about the Spokenscandies’ “indefinite hiatus”. The puzzling decision related to the “polarizing” nature of M&M’s green boots, so it appeared intended to mitigate the right-wing backlash. However, the company had also announced just last month that there would be an M&M’s ad campaign tied to the Super Bowl. Now we know it was just a giant troll.
