This year’s M&M’S Super Bowl ad from Mars Inc. was teased days before the big game. The short teaser showed the beloved character Yellow working up a sweat in his gym wear. Suddenly, he’s shot with a tranquilizer and dragged out of the seen. The video ends.

Those watching Super Bowl XLVIII found out what happened to Yellow in the official 45-second commercial, and it wasn’t pretty, thanks to his highly sought after peanut interior.

Before viewers even realize it’s a candy commercial, a mysterious man appears at a secluded mansion and then after walking out to the driveway, he is seen speaking Russian and threatening someone locked up in the trunk of his car. The English subtitles reveal to the audience that the mysterious man is actually telling the person in the trunk that he plans to chop them into little pieces and sprinkle his remains onto ice cream.  

The camera pans to Yellow.

Blissfully unaware of how irresistible he is, and unable to understand Russian, Yellow responds, “I have no idea what you’re saying, but count me in.” Yikes!

The MVP-caliber Super Bowl commercial for M&M'S brand shined a spotlight on M&M'S Peanut and confirmed its beloved character Yellow's reputation as "America's Favorite Nut." Created by BBDO New York, it aired during the first half of the big game and took the limelight off of M&M’S character Red for once.

"Our Super Bowl commercial and campaign provided an outstanding platform to communicate our quality message,” says Seth Klugherz, senior director, M&M'S Chocolate Candies. “That each M&M'S Peanut is literally 1 in 100 — meaning we have to sort through 100 different peanuts, just to find one that's lucky enough to make its way into a bag ofM&M'S Peanut."

On the heels of Super Bowl XLVIII,M&M'S plans to continue to roll-out an integrated marketing campaign focused on M&M'S Peanut, which includes multiple English and Spanish television, print and digital ads, in-store displays, consumer promotions, public relations and social media.

The Super Bowl XLVIII commercial is the latest exciting effort in the brand's "Year of Peanut” campaign, a year-long effort to showcase the irresistibility of M&M'S Peanut.  The project has included several exciting launches, including:

  • A fully integrated push behind the Super Bowl XLVIII spot that included a humorous trailer and social media campaign fueled by Yellow and his fellow M&M'S spokescandies.
  • An exciting real-time content platform during the Super Bowl that treated fans and consumers to fun, insightful "Color Commentary" anchored by breathtaking Vine videos which showed M&M'S Peanut lentils act out key moments in the broadcast.
  • A star-studded event on New Year's Eve in Atlanta — the unofficial peanut capital of the nation.
  • A humorous online video series called the "Search for the One," which starred actor and comedian David Koechner as an eccentric explorer searching for the "perfect peanut."

 Yellow first was introduced along with M&M'S Peanut in 1954. Since then, the irresistible chocolate-coated peanut has captured the hearts and "taste buds" of the nation, but he usually plays a supporting role to his best friend and fellow spokescandy Red.