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M&Ms Candy Has Fun With Dark Side

While other candy marketers tout dark chocolate in a "good-for-you" vein, M&Ms is taking the opposite approach. In a new ad campaign for M&Ms Dark Chocolate, M&M's mascot Red is playing hopscotch in front of Edvard Munch's dark masterpiece "The Scream" at New York's Guggenheim museum. The candy's parent company, Masterfoods USA, is offering a reward of 2 million dark chocolate M&M's for the return of the painting, which was snatched from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, on Aug. 22, 2004. Masterfoods has been building up national distribution of the new product since July. It is adopting a lighthearted stance in a market where dark chocolate is predominantly marketed as a sober treat. In a survey of 1,522 adult U.S. women by researchers CyberPulseTM Advisory, 65 percent said dark chocolate is more serious than other chocolates. Even diehards admit that dark is more classical music than reggae, more black tie than picnic. More than 85 percent said dark chocolate is more sophisticated than fun, but they would be interested in a fun, new way to eat the indulgence.

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