Los Angeles planners Rabin Rodgers and M&M's senior marketing director Doug Milne had guests feeling like kids in a candy store at M&M's Brand City event, held in a parking lot at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle Avenue. The event—sponsored by Volkswagen and hosted by Megan Mullally, Dick Clark, Carmen Electra, Dave Navarro, Mischa Barton and others—invited guests to celebrate the reintroduction of color to the candies after a three-month period during which they were sold in black and white as part of a marketing gimmick.
Guests headed down a red carpet lined with new Volkswagen Beetles—prizes for a few lucky attendees—to a series of colored dome tents provided by Pacific Domes. Each tent represented one of the six different colors of M&M's and a different era of the candies' past. “We wanted to reinforce the history of M&M's, but show it in a modern and sexy way,” said event coplanner Bryan Rabin. Guests danced to the beats of Biz Markie and DJ AM in a red room with red chandeliers and mini disco balls to evoke the overindulgent 80's. Bartenders awaited the thirsty dancers in orange and yellow tents reminiscent of the psychedelic 60's and 70's. Dishes of M&M's rested on tables made of Mag wheels with chrome hubcaps, and candy-shaped leather ottomans and beanbag chairs in each room's theme color provided simple seating.
Dana Williams of Bread & Wine served a menu of herb-crusted lamb, mini veggie cheeseburgers, ginger chicken cakes and baked apple tarts. Guests with simpler palettes could sample from the fountain filled with blue M&M's in the blue domed tent that served as the event space's entrance, or save their appetites for their goodie bags full of—what else?—more M&M's.
—Mica Campbell
Guests headed down a red carpet lined with new Volkswagen Beetles—prizes for a few lucky attendees—to a series of colored dome tents provided by Pacific Domes. Each tent represented one of the six different colors of M&M's and a different era of the candies' past. “We wanted to reinforce the history of M&M's, but show it in a modern and sexy way,” said event coplanner Bryan Rabin. Guests danced to the beats of Biz Markie and DJ AM in a red room with red chandeliers and mini disco balls to evoke the overindulgent 80's. Bartenders awaited the thirsty dancers in orange and yellow tents reminiscent of the psychedelic 60's and 70's. Dishes of M&M's rested on tables made of Mag wheels with chrome hubcaps, and candy-shaped leather ottomans and beanbag chairs in each room's theme color provided simple seating.
Dana Williams of Bread & Wine served a menu of herb-crusted lamb, mini veggie cheeseburgers, ginger chicken cakes and baked apple tarts. Guests with simpler palettes could sample from the fountain filled with blue M&M's in the blue domed tent that served as the event space's entrance, or save their appetites for their goodie bags full of—what else?—more M&M's.
—Mica Campbell