Caramel M&Ms

I am a marketing purist, so to speak. I was grounded in the fundamentals of brand management at Johnson & Johnson early in my career, and I live by those fundamentals on a daily basis. Of course technology has changed how we communicate in marketing now, but the fundamental principles in how to build a brand haven't really changed.

One of those principles is...once you define who you are as a brand, stick to it.

For example...we'd never see Dove introduced a line of color cosmetics, would we? We'd never see Tide introduce a line of dry cleaning establishments, would we? We'd never see Philadelphia Cream Cheese introduce a line of peanut butters, would we?

Or how about M&Ms introduce M&M's Caramels? You heard that right. The candy brand that "melts in your mouth not in your hand" is launching its first non-chocolate product in the Spring.



It evidently took a long time to figure out how to make M&M's Caramel, and I'm sure it took a long time to get everyone on board to walk away from chocolate. The candy coated shell around a morsel of chocolate is how the brand was born...I'm sure it was fundamentally hard to change that.


But as a marketing purist, I can live with it. :)

It's still keeping to the essence of what the brand is all about...candy coated morsel of sweetness that isn't messy and is easy to share. And it's fun, which is exactly what the brand is all about.

Can't wait to try them!  What's your experience? JIM
Jim JosephM&Ms, brandingComment