Forrest Mars Senior invented M&M’s in the 1930’s after he saw Spanish Civil War soldiers eating chocolate pellets coated in a hard shell which prevented melting. Nowadays there is an M&M to cater for your every mood, including peanut, almond, mint, crunchy or plain chocolate. The basic model however comes in six colours, which are all the same shape and all taste the same.

Not much to work with for a concept store, you might think. Unless you’ve visited the three level, 2500 sq.m. extravaganza that is M&M’s World in Times Square.

It’s not the most beautifully designed store in the world and not the most technologically sophisticated, apart from the two massive LED animated signs on the façade. But for sheer exuberance and celebration of the brand it takes your breath away.

The product itself is housed in tall plexiglass tubes from which you serve yourself in a pick n mix fashion. That much candy is a spectacle in itself before you consider the vast selection of M&Ms licensed merchandise based on animated characters developed from the different coloured sweets. There is everything from baby clothes to chess sets, from drink bottles to customized M&Ms monopoly games. The star of the show is a limited edition M&Ms leather jacket encrusted with Swarvoski crystal, yours for $US3000. All of this is presided over by a two storey green M&M posing as the Statue of Liberty.

Before the store opened in 2006, there was a queue of 13,000 people lined up around the block outside- no, not as customers, as job applicants. Everyone wants to work in a sweetshop, especially one with an unusually generous benefits package.

It’s a lolly shop on steroids, but It’s a prime example just how far you can stretch a concept- from a base of five different coloured chocolates.

Could we do it with an Australian icon? Tim Tam World? Vegemite City? Anything is possible….

Gary McCartney is Managing Director of design company brands in space, (www.brandsinspace.com) He can be contacted on gary.mccartney@brandsinspace.com.au