Maya Rudolph in the 2023 M&M Super Bowl commercial

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We are living in tough times. The public opinions that circulate on social media can quickly become a weapon, with a relevant portion of society attacking all together a single situation, position, or brand. And this way, the simple ambition of doing something everybody can agree on becomes impossible. Up to the point that someone just gives up: it’s what happened in January 2023 to M&M, with a public statement announcing a change in the advertising policy. The new commercial will be shared on the 2023 Super Bowl, and after the controversy that triggered the public debate in 2022, the new spokesperson will be Maya Rudolph, replacing the “spokescandies” we always saw in the ads. Let’s find out what happened.

Maya Rudolph in the 2023 M&M Super Bowl commercial: is the controversy solved?

2023 is the year when M&M announced a significant change in their advertisement policy: the famous “spokescandies” that animated the commercials so far will not appear anymore, and the new commercial will be hosted by a face that (hopefully) will dissolve any controversy: the American actress and comedian Maya Rudolph.

You can find here on Twitter the official announcement where M&M explained the reasons for this decision, shared on January 2023. The ultimate goal of the chocolate brand is to bring people together; although they didn’t expect that the new versions of their beloved candies would create the 2022 debate, they decided to take a break from that direction and delegate the role of spokesperson to Maya Rudolph, a TV personality everybody loves.

The controversy was triggered in 2022 after M&M slightly changed the appearance of green M&M, making it “less sexy.” According to someone, this was an attempt to affect female representation, and at some point, public opinion suggested that the intention was to introduce a lesbian representative. You can find an explanation of the whole controversy here on Polygon.com.

In other words: for some reason, the M&M commercial shared in 2022 divided the audience, which is the opposite of what a famous brand wants to do. To restore the general reputation of the brand, M&M decided to (temporarily?) retire the candies character and ask Maya Rudolph to take over, as an example of a public personality who would never say anything that could trigger controversy.

Who is Maya Rudolph?

Maya Rudolph is an American actress, comedian, and singer who’s been active since 1996. She became famous for participating in Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2007. You can watch in this video her imitation of Beyoncé, one of her most notable performances on SNL.

After she left SNL, her career as an actress and voice actress took off: she started playing minor roles in the TV shows City Of Angels and Chicago Hope, then she played in the movie 50 First Dates and was a member of the cast in the animated film Shrek the Third.

More recently, she was a voice in the Pixar movie Luca and played in Licorice Pizza and Disenchanted. Over the years, she won many accolades, proving her popularity in the United States.

Her mission is to fix a debate that sees a portion of the American audience angry against M&M commercial strategy. Not an easy goal, especially because of the predisposition that now those voices in the social networks have. But never say never.

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