M&M/Mars’ 1993 Halloween Stars Promotional Brochure – And The Last Halloween TV special!

Back in 1993, M&M/Mars built a seasonal promotion around a group of animated characters from a television special called The Last Halloween.  Today I thought it would be fun to take a look at that brochure and maybe a little of that old TV special, too.

The promotional brochure was designed like a pocketed file folder with an unfolding main section highlighting the various sizes of multipack offerings available to retailers.  Here’s the cover, showcasing the characters interacting with the M&M/Mars products:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 01

When unfolded, the brochure creates a long single scene:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 02-05 unfolded

Here are those first three unfolded pages, shown individually for product detail:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 02

I really dig the PB Max Fun Size pack on this next page – I’ve never come across any of those before!

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 03

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 04

[Note: I don’t have an isolated close-up of page 5, as it is just the pocket page and has no product.]

The back side of the unfolded brochure describes the supporting campaign that M&M/Mars would be doing for the Halloween Stars promotion:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 06

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 07

The back cover of the brochure highlights the The Last Halloween TV special tied into this promotion.  The alien characters featured in the special were created and owned by M&M/Mars, so that would seem to indicate that the special was created in association with the confectioner’s marketing plans.

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional brochure – page 08

Inserted into the fold-out folder were a few additional pieces of paperwork, including two promotional flyers.  The first one focused on pallet style product display offerings.

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars Pallet display – promotional flyer – page 01 – front

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars Pallet display – promotional flyer – page 02 – back

One oddball flyer included in this packet was for large Halloween containers.  These might be familiar to some of you as I believe M&M/Mars continued to use them for many years.  I love tracking down pieces like this that put items into their historical marketing context:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional flyer – Ghost Pumpkin Black Cat Canisters

Here’s a small sample price card:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional price card

The last item from the brochure I have to show is a clip-art ad slick, featuring the four characters from the TV special.   This could have been used by retailers to create custom newspaper ads.  Since they were owned by M&M/Mars, I’d consider this group of characters as candy mascots of sorts.  The characters are named Scoota, Romtu, Gleep, and Bing:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars promotional clip art ad slick

Here’s a shot of just the four characters:

M&M_Mars_1993_Halloween Stars from “The Last Halloween” – Scoota, Romtu, Gleep, Bing

That’s the full content of the promotional brochure and folder.  I do have one more thing to share, which I found on YouTube:  It’s the original The Last Halloween TV special!  Within it you’ll find Scoota, Romtu, Gleep and Bing in action — check it out:

And that’s everything for today’s post on M&M/Mars 1993 Halloween Stars promotion.  See you next time!

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Today’s post has been part of CollectingCandy.com’s 2013 Countdown to Halloween. To check out other sites celebrating Halloween all month long, check out the official CountdownToHalloween site.