The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024
M&M's crowns Super Bowl losers with a real ring set with diamonds made from M&M's
For Super Bowl LVIII, M&M's made the Almost Champions Ring of Comfort — diamonds grown from peanut-butter M&M's — for famous athletes who never won.
M&M's (Mars Wrigley)
What it had to solve
Every year the Super Bowl crowns one team with rings while the losers go home empty-handed. M&M's built its campaign around the 'almost champion' — Hall of Fame players who never won a Super Bowl, and stars who lost award races — and made comfort the prize.
How it works
Super Bowl winners receive rings and glory, while the losers get nothing but the memory of coming close. M&M's saw the almost-champions — and everyone who ever rooted for them — as the audience its comfort message was built for.
The idea became a real object: the Almost Champions Ring of Comfort, billed as the first-ever Super Bowl ring for the losers. M&M's worked with scientists and diamond-making experts to transform comforting M&M's Peanut Butter into glittering diamonds placed on the ring — a consolation prize made from the comfort food itself.
A Super Bowl ad introduced the ring, starring Dan Marino, Bruce Smith and Terrell Owens, three NFL Hall of Famers who famously never won a Super Bowl, alongside Scarlett Johansson, an A-list actress who lost two Oscar races in one year.
The archive records no reach or sales figures. What is preserved is the inversion itself: losing, the most common outcome of any competition, became the occasion for the brand's comfort story, and the ring gave the ad a physical object worth talking about.
Why it lands
- Losers are the unserved audience of every Super Bowl: millions of fans and star athletes know exactly how second place feels.
- Making the ring from M&M's peanut butter turned the brand's comfort promise into a physical trophy you could hold.
- Casting Hall of Famers who never won made the gift credible rather than a generic pity prize.
- The ring gave the Super Bowl ad a real object to reveal, so paid media had something worth sharing.
What it did
The archive page records no reach or sales figures; the documented outcome is the artifact itself — the first-ever Super Bowl ring made for the losers, with diamonds literally grown from the candy — held in the D&AD awards archive as an Integrated winner.
What you can take
Comfort brands do not need winners: find the people nursing a loss and give them an object that says someone noticed — a tangible consolation beats another congratulation.
Since then
The Almost Champions Ring of Comfort existed as a physical artifact introduced during Super Bowl LVIII, with the ring itself carried by a spot starring players and stars who had famously lost. The archive page holds the work among its Integrated winners and records no follow-up sales or reach figures; its lasting value is the model of turning second place into the brand's moment.
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