M&M’s tries a familiar tagline: “Finger Lickin Good”

by David Brown

M&M’s has seemingly stolen KFC’s famous tagline, though it’s clearly a clever collaboration and not a theft.

On Monday, the Mars brand revealed a new campaign for its M&M’s chocolate bar on Twitter. But whereas M&M’s “Melt in your mouth, not in your hand” the same can’t be said of the chocolate bars. That led M&M’s to use the line “Our new chocolate bar melts in your mouth, AND in your hand” accompanied by the hashtag #fingerlickingood.

When KFC Canada wondered on Twitter what was going on, M&M’s tried to deflect:

But KFC wasn’t giving up, leading M&M’s to confess—at which point KFC wondered if it needed to involve its lawyers.

There’s also an ad posted to YouTube and a special site FingerLickinGood.ca (with small print giving the trademark acknowledgements to KFC parent Yum). BBDO has been the M&M’s agency for some time, but when The Message tried BBDO Canada president and CEO Dom Caruso for comment, he declined, saying only: “We need our lawyers to get back to you.”

Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

David Brown