Creative brief

Curious Productions approached Little Shadow to deliver a playful series of short-form animations promoting three distinct M&M’s products—Peanut, Peanut Butter, and Minis—on social platforms. Each spot needed to stand out in busy social feeds, dial into each flavour’s identity, and land brand cues within just a few seconds.

Working in close collaboration with the lead agency team, the creative brief was built around quick-hit, visually loud moments of product celebration. All assets were designed for a square format, optimised for platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Our approach

We developed three unique visual worlds tailored to each M&M’s variant, ensuring a shared design language while giving each its own playful rhythm.

For Peanut, we leaned into bold colour, exaggerated bounce, and a slight retro edge—playing off the iconic yellow and the product’s status as the original. Peanut Butter took on a smoother, more indulgent tone, with flowing transitions and soft-sheen highlights. Meanwhile, Minis got the most kinetic treatment, matching their chaotic energy with quick cuts, scale shifts and rapid movement across the frame.

All animations were built in After Effects, with bespoke transitions and character-style motion applied to product elements. We balanced brand compliance with visual invention, ensuring colour grading, type, and logo use matched global guidelines while pushing motion and timing to stay fresh and competitive in the branded content space.

Assets were delivered in square 1:1 format, loop-ready and optimised for mobile playback, with silent autoplay in mind.

The results

We delivered a suite of short-form animations tailored to M&M’s Peanut, Peanut Butter and Minis SKUs—each under 10 seconds, square format, fully platform-ready.
Used across the brand’s social feeds and paid campaigns, the posts reinforced product distinctiveness while maintaining visual cohesion across the campaign.