The past two years have been a powerful time of reckoning and conversation around racial equity in the United States. It seems every week more institutions and brands are following this trend and promising their customers that they are committed to diversity and equity. To state the obvious, many of these changes appear superficial and it’s always challenging to determine if such changes are only made to protect a company’s revenue. Sadly it appears that the days of companies hiding this superficially are over, an age of brainless corporate rebrands has officially begun.

Just last week, the Mars company took a gaping stride forward in social progress when they launched a global program to promote inclusivity and beginning by… reshaping M&Ms. That’s right, Mars Inc, a company worth $40 billion, decided to take on the issue of diversity by making their signature chocolate snack just a little more inconvenient.

Mars announced last week in a press release that they will be altering the sizes and shapes of their M&M’s and more prominently featuring the two female M&Ms in their branding with the extraordinary hope to “increase a sense of belonging for ten million people by 2025, helping to connect and celebrate one another.” This bold claim is unsubstantiated, and it frankly requires some mental gymnastics to see how 10 million people will be included by society because of M&Ms.

The size alteration is accompanied by another addition to the candy that literally no one asked for. Not only will the physical M&Ms be changed, but Mars also hopes their candy will support “more nuanced personalities,” and “underscore the importance of self-expression and power of community through storytelling.” Now customers can have the peace of mind knowing that every M&M they eat has a full life story and deep cultural background.

There’s a crucially important line between necessary and superficial change. If M&Ms were somehow seriously problematic before the rebrand, maybe M&Ms with more self-expression wouldn’t be such a bad thing but there seriously is nothing wrong with normal M&Ms. If Mars is so committed to global unity, there are a plethora of better ways they could spend their money, donations to organizations truly working for racial equity would be a great start. The fact of the matter is that the company is wasting incredible amounts of money on an ad campaign that does absolutely nothing for the causes it claims to support. A better example of companies appealing to consumer wants and societal changes without actually doing anything would be hard to find.

In my opinion, reaching into a bag of inconsistently shaped overly anthropomorphized M&Ms with nuanced personalities is quite frankly a societal harm that no consumer should have to experience. Mars needs to either stay out of social change or put their money where their mouth is. And stop giving food a personality. It’s weird.