Many of us have heard the Urban Legend that green M&Ms are supposed to be aphrodesiacs.
I remember when I was a kid (20-25 years ago), my slightly-younger brother called up the M&Ms company and them whether green M&Ms actually made you horny. The person who answered the phone said she’d never even heard this rumor. I thought that would be the last I’d hear of it.
But then, 10 or 15 years later, I saw an M&Ms commercial on TV featuring a kid who claimed that eating different colors of M&Ms would allow him to score hits in baseball. Yellow M&Ms were a double, orange M&Ms were a triple. With a sly grin, he added, “And with the green ones, I take the ball downtown!” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Hitting a “home run” with the one color of M&Ms that had been rumored to work as an aphrodesiac, eh?
Well, several years later, a green computer-animated female M&M was conversing with Dennis Miller in another TV add. He asked, “So, is it true what I hear about the green ones?” The female green M&M got all ticked off, and screamed, “It’s a lie!!” When Dennis Miller coyly responded, “Okay! So you’re not lime, then?”, she answered, “‘Lime?!’ Hmph. Where do you get your gossip?”
If that wasn’t a blatant reference to the green=ahprodesiac Urban Legend, I don’t know what was.
I’m writing this because, just today, I saw a full-page M&M’s ad in TV guide. The caption read “What is it about the green ones?”, and the word DESIRE was spelled out in green M&Ms. And as if that weren’t enough, there was a little “TM” sign next to the phrase “What is it about the green ones?” – meaning that that phrase is trademarked. The M&Ms company is really serious about protecting a trademark that treats green M&Ms as “special”.
While M&Ms isn’t coming out and saying it, their ads seem to imply that green M&Ms really do have the effects they’re rumored to. Of course, in reality, the only difference between a green M&M and one of another color is the food coloring used in that thin shell around the outside, and no aphrodesiac properties have ever been verified for the kind of green food coloring used in green M&Ms shells.
So … is it deceptive advertising for M&Ms to capitalize on this myth?