What happened to Smarties? It is the small candy coated chocolate candy that underachieved. When I was little no one had really heard of M&M's. It was all about Smarties. We got them in our Christmas stocking and there were the great TV commercials, 'When you eat your Smarties do you eat the red ones last, do you suck them very slowly or crunch them very fast, with that candy coated chocolate please tell me when I ask, when you eat your Smarties do you eat the red ones last.' Smarties also taste better than M&M's; at least better than the regular chocolate M&M's. Any side by side taste test between regular milk chocolate M&M's and Smarties is a no contest. The Smarties candy and chocolate beats M&M's hands down.
Then Smarties blew it. I haven't seen a Smarties commercial in at least 20 years and the product hasn't changed one bit. It is still the same one type variety served up in a cardboard box. Smarties are owned by Nestle and M&M's are owned by Mars Corp. Both are humongous multi-billion dollar organizations but it was the guys at Mars Corp that did the marketing and who saw the opportunity to grow the brand.
The little M&M guys are now ubiquitous. We all see them on TV and likely have some of their merchandising. The appeal for me is curious, for my 13 year old it is infections. When we visited London last summer he was infinitely more interested in the M&M store than he was in the Tower of London and the British Museum combined. The store in London has four stories of M&M's merchandising from tee shirts to underwear and of course every conceivable flavor and permeation of M&M's. Where is the Smarties merchandising?
M&M's has variety. When I said that Smarties are better than regular M&M's I was referring to the milk chocolate variety; I didn't mention the dark chocolate M&M's which for my taste are vastly better than regular Smarties. I also didn't mention the M&M's pretzels which fit a spot when you want a light snack or of course M&M's with peanuts which are great on a hike. This is what Smarties could have been.
So as we are picking through the remains of the Halloween candy we did the side by side taste tests and everyone agreed that regular Smarties taste better than regular M&M's. We also agreed that Smarties seem quaint while M&M's are cool.
What do you think?
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