• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, October 25, 2024

The fourth quarter is everything to the candy category, and M&M’s is using it to take a quick trip down the fashion runway. The Mars-owned brand is launching a limited-edition collaboration with Kate Spade New York, offering bright leather goods that look like Peanut M&M’S, lentil shaped earrings, bracelets and stacking rings, pendants that look like its spokescandies and jewelry charms inspired by M&M’S bright and playful palette.

This collaboration is just one piece of Mars' wider approach to brand building, which seeks to combine creativity and cultural relevance with innovative marketing techniques designed to reach consumers in new and meaningful ways.

“We believe in a human-first approach, championing communities and co-creation that includes innovation,” Gülen Bengi, Mars’ chief marketing officer and chief growth officer for Mars Snacking, told attendees of the ANA Masters of Marketing conference. “Bringing them together is what drives the magic.”

Much of what Mars is focusing on is about major shifts in both consumers and ad technology. Such trends as the rise of weight loss drugs that will make snacking more emotionally indulgent, urbanization shrinking average kitchen size, and people living longer with fewer children are all reshaping marketing tactics.

“The changes are big, and they're coming fast,” Bengi said. “The inflection point is here, and the winning brands will provide the right engagement at the right time with the right offer at every relevant touch point for everyone.”

Gen Z looms large in Mars’ adaptations, with 90% of the cohort identifying as gamers and 60% wanting personalization and experiences beyond products, she said in a keynote delivered both in-person and virtually.  “It's not about marketing in the gaming platforms -- it's about understanding how it impacts them. They like to co-create their game. They don't want to be talked at or innovated at. They want to co-create and own their destiny.”

Those desires are driving the creator economy. There are already at 200 million creators, and she said Mars expects those numbers to double over the next three years.

None of this has changed the fundamentals of brand building, she said, pointing out that the company’s Snickers brand has been winning with the same “You’re not you when you’re hungry” platform for 14 years. “We’re utilizing distinctive memory structures that remain consistent over time, consistently driving growth, consistently at the heart of culture,” she said. “We are creating connected consumer journeys with no dead ends, leveraging universal insight which enable programs to scale globally.”

That means every engagement leads to another engagement or to the buy button.

One of her favorite examples comes from Mars’ Pedigree dog food brand, which uses machine learning to turn assets from the shelter community into dog portraits, and AI to put real, adoptable shelter dogs at the center of global advertising. “It turns every Pedigree ad into an ad for a shelter dog," she said. "Within the first two weeks with this campaign, we saw that 50% of the featured dogs were actually adopted, and traffic to shelter sites increased by six times."

The effort also addressed another problem, which is that one in five adopted dogs are returned to shelters. This effort matches dogs to locations that suit them best, focusing on data like household size and proximity to parks. “It puts our purpose at the heart of everything that we do,” Bengi said. “Soon, every dollar we spend on media will not only help to bring our products to the world, but it will also help bring adoptable dogs to the world, too.”