Are you plain? Or nutty?

One of the biggest ways to get your product branded in the minds of the consumer is by forcing your target to interact with the item.

With this in mind, Mars, Inc. has revamped the M&M website. The website is geared towards a younger audience with simple games, such as basic trivia and memory games. However, they have gone one step further and launched the Become an M&M website. On this site, users can choose the color and shape of their M&M (plain or peanut) and add accessories to turn the candy into a caricature of themselves or anyone they know. But that's not all.

After the character is created, users have the option of putting their M&M into a fake movie trailer or an arcade-style game.

The big question here is, Does it work? In my experience, this website really does keep M&Ms in the mind of the consumer. As a test I created my own caricatured candy piece and made the image into my profile picture on Facebook, leaving it up for one week. During that week I got a number of inquiries as to what my picture was, where it came from, and - most importantly - how could my friends do it, too? Before I knew it, my friends had similar profile or desktop images. Are they buying more M&Ms? I'm not sure. What I do know, though, is that the company has succeeded in driving people to their website. And really, when your brand is as known as M&M, what more can you ask for?