N&Ns

by hilzoy

TidBITS tells me something that made me think, simultaneously: that's kind of fun! and: gosh, some people apparently have too much money burning holes in their pockets:

"I just saw in the Photojojo newsletter that you can print text and - this part is new - photos on M&M's, the little candy-covered chocolates from Mars. This doesn't mean you can run an M&M through your HP inkjet, amusing as that is to imagine; instead you design your M&M's on the My M&M's Web site. For any order, you can create up to four designs - two photos and two text messages. Photos should look good when printed in black food-grade ink at a size of about 1 centimeter, and if you think Twitter's 140 character limit is tight, try getting your message across in two lines of 8 characters each. Going beyond the obvious may be a bit tricky, since Mars is persnickety about what you're allowed to put on an M&M, so no "inappropriate" images, objectionable words or phrases, business or product names, drug references, or single letters."

They provide various examples, many of which seem to involve two M&Ms: "Congrats John" and "#1 Salesman", for instance. Personally, I don't know how much of a market there will be for M&M-based proposals of marriage, like (their example) "Rachel Will You" and "Marry Me?" Even if my name were Rachel, I think I'd be a bit baffled by the idea that M&Ms were the best medium in which to express this particular thought.

I am glad that they thought to say this:

"To avoid any confusion and keep everyone safe, we will not print any reference to drugs or prescription items, especially those that are in pill or capsule form."

This, on the other hand, is just funny:

"We take great pride in the history of M&M'S® products, so the only single letter we print on our candy is the letter "m"."

Darn. On reflection, the one order I might be at all tempted to make is the one for a nice bag of N&Ns.

Comments

[Phil]

Throw them a curveball and order some W&Ws.

[Lindsay K]

I wonder if the refusal to print any other single letter besides m is a trademark enforcement issue? Or a brand confusion issue. I mean, you can't trademark every individual letter of the alphabet, so theoretically someone could start making Ns, and you couldn't stop them...Then if you add to that the fact that M&Ms would be printing their candies with Ns-

Is that like the lawyer's equivalent of LSD? Weird.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sounds like just the thing to hand out when our baby is born. I'll have to check into it.

[Davis X. Machina]

Saw some last week as a give-away at a wedding. Beats those nasty white Jordan almonds -- toothwreckers, and taste like plywood, to boot.

[Just Dropping By]

that's kind of fun! and: gosh, some people apparently have too much money burning holes in their pockets

It's really not that expensive. The smallest order is threee 7 oz bags for just under $36 before shipping/tax.

[John Mark Ockerbloom]

I suspect "the only single letter we'll do is m" is their way of trying to avoid people spelling out things with the lettered M&Ms they don't want associated with the product (such as the other things they say they won't print).

There are various workarounds for this possible (two-letter combos, for instance), but they tend to require more planning ahead than mixing and matching lots of single-letter M&Ms (or are more expensive if you want to cover the whole range of possibilities).

[aimai]

I'd do it with an Obama slogan if it weren't so expensive. It would be fun to hand them out.

aimai

[Ginger Yellow]

I've seen a lot of these at conferences. Companies put their logo on them and use them for marketing.

[The Modesto Kid]

the only single letter we print on our candy is the letter "m".

So forget your plan to order a batch of "Rachel I Love You" candies.

[Gold Star for Robot Boy]

Ordered 10 pounds of these for my wedding in April. Wife and I were very pleased with the final product - but not the 20 pounds of misprints. Mars kept sending us candy with the wedding date as 4-19-07.

[John in Nashville]

I once tried to alphabetize a bag of m&ms. I did okay with the es, ms, and ws, but I couldn't figure out where to put the 3s.

As the late George Carlin said, if you have one piece of m&m candy, is it an m&m? Or just an m?

[Gary Hussein Farber]

"I did okay with the es, ms, and ws, but I couldn't figure out where to put the 3s."

Er, the same way numbers are always alphabetized? In number order, before the letters?

[Jeff]

So forget your plan to order a batch of "Rachel I Love You" candies.

The "I" isn't a "single letter". You couldn't order "Rachel" "I" "Love you", but as is, it's fine.

$40 to tell my girl-friend I love her in a fun way? I must have money burning a hole in my pocket!

[Amos Newcombe]

the same way numbers are always alphabetized? In number order, before the letters?

This is only true if "always" starts in the early 1960's with the ASCII code. The 7-bit FIELDATA code had numbers after letters. Earlier codes had only 5 bits, and did not have a single code space where codes for alphabetic and numeric characters could be compared directly to each other.

[FearItself]

Darn. On reflection, the one order I might be at all tempted to make is the one for a nice bag of N&Ns.

I think I'll order a batch with just an ampersand on them (they should do it, since it's not a letter). Then I'll have "&&&s."

[Gary Farber]

"This is only true if 'always' starts in the early 1960's with the ASCII code."

I don't know anything about ASCII; I meant in any office I've ever been in, by people called "file clerks."

To be sure, I was using "always" in a highly restricted, and even exaggerated, sense, since certainly there must be any number of offices that do things differently.

Really, any system that you like will work, so long as you're consistent about it, and all the people who will use your system can remember it.