M&M's Spokescandies are showing up in the middle of a crime scene, a telenovela, and a reality show elimination, and none of it ends well for them.
Three years after M&M's benched the characters over a culture war fight, BBDO Chicago found the one role nobody can get mad about.
"Screentime" launched on September 24 with three 15-second spots titled "Telenovela," "Scene of the Crime," and "Unanimous."
Each one drops the Spokescandies into a familiar movie or TV setup, then ends up being eaten.
Shot in Toronto and directed by Rami Hachache of Prettybird, the work runs across broadcast, full-episode player video, programmatic, and social.
BBDO Chicago CCO Josh Gross said the appeal comes from how familiar the characters already feel, noting "these Spokescandies feel like a cast we've known for years."
"It works so well because these Spokescandies feel like a cast we've known for years. We love them – but we kinda want to eat them – and that tension is irresistible," he added in a press release.
The concept keeps M&M's brand voice consistent with its longtime snack-first sense of humor.
It has powered earlier spots like "Hostage," "Trailer," and "Unanimous Decision."
Crime dramas, telenovelas, and competition shows all come with audiences who know the beats by heart.
That familiarity does half the creative work, which is why brand characters keep showing up in borrowed formats.
A mascot with a fixed personality slots into a genre the same way a guest star does, and the brand identity survives the cameo intact.
M&M's Gets Eaten in All Three Spots
In "Scene of the Crime," detectives work a case with five M&M-shaped victims, all of them already eaten.
One detective then spots the Spokescandies standing nearby and picks out which one he wants next.
"Telenovela" has the Green M&M swooning over a Spanish-speaking leading man she can't understand.
The subtitles tell viewers what he actually wants, which is to eat her with trail mix and popcorn.
Lastly, "Unanimous" sends the red and yellow M&M's home from a competition show, only to land on a plate instead of a couch.
Every spot closes on the Spokescandies together on a couch against a yellow backdrop, under the platform tagline "It's More Fun Together."
"Screentime" continues the strategy M&M's started last year, putting the characters inside genres people already watch.
M&M's also ran a "Practical Magic 2" limited edition and served as the exclusive candy partner of the latest "Love Island USA" season in July.
Why M&M's Picked True Crime and Reality TV
An estimated 84% of the U.S. population aged 13 and older, roughly 230 million people, engaged with true crime content in some form in 2024.
This number gives M&M's "Scene of the Crime" ad an audience that's familiar with the narrative format.
Reality competition pulls even bigger totals, and one show sits far above the rest.
Nielsen clocked "Survivor" at 462.4 million viewing hours during the 2025 Emmy eligibility window, more than twice any other nominated series.
M&M's picked three formats that draw a crowd on their own, then let its mascots be part of the genre.
Three lessons for marketers eyeing multi-genre campaigns:
- Match the joke to the genre's own rules. A parody only works when the gag comes out of the format's own logic.
- Spread one structure across formats. Repeating a single comic structure in different genres gives a campaign three executions off of one idea.
- Close on the same beat every time. A shared final frame ties unrelated spots into one recognizable campaign.
M&M's picked genres where the audience already knows what comes next, then interrupts on cue.
Our Take: Do the Spokescandies Have a Place in These Genres?
A telenovela lives or dies on a confession nobody saw coming.
A crime procedural lives on a detective who notices what everyone else misses.
A competition show lives on the vote nobody wants to hear read aloud.
And we think that M&M's belongs in all three, mostly because the brand gave itself the only safe role left.
The Spokescandies spent 2023 as a political punching bag, paused indefinitely after Tucker Carlson spent a year complaining about Green's sneakers.
Getting eaten is the one thing a talking candy can do without anyone writing a column about it.
The gag quietly solves a business problem, since appetite is the one trait nobody can call woke.
M&M's keeps decades of character equity and takes on none of the risk.
This format can also absorb whatever show comes next, which is more than most brand mascots can say right now.
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