In September 2022, M&M’s launched its third female character, Purple supposed to represent acceptance and inclusion, the purple symbolizing in particular support for the LGBTQ community and the expression of homosexuality. Purple’s arrival sparked criticism that M&M’s parent company Mars Wrigley was politicizing its chocolate candies and submitting to the “woke” community, a word for activism against all forms of discrimination and exclusion. targeting one or more minorities. Following the political recovery of the American conservative right and the media of the channels associated with it, spokespersons for M&M’s announced, at the beginning of last week, that they had decided to put the characters on indefinite hiatus. We needed no less to address the issue of brand characters, and more specifically mascots in the sports industry. Through Jerome BoisselTeacher-Researcher at ESC Clermont Business School and member of the CleRMa laboratory.
In 2013, the “Cercle Frédéric Mistral” was born, the first club of mascot advertisers, whose name pays homage to the French writer and lexicographer who invented the word “mascot” in the 19th century.th century. For 10 years, this club has aimed to bring together brands that share the same issues related to the use of a mascot in order to meet and discuss their best marketing practices.
As Patterson, Khogeer and Hodgson (2013) point out in the very serious Journal of Marketing Management, brand characters such as Bibendum or the Energizer rabbit have nothing to envy to other fictional characters as they are memorable and representative of the brand they embody. The authors also name the late Marlboro cowboy as “the most influential man who never lived”. In fact, anthropomorphic characters have accompanied brands for more than a century and their influence on the attitudes and behaviors of young and old is well established (Hémar-Nicolas and Gollety, 2008; Nicolas-Hémar, 2009; Hémar-Nicolas, 2011).
