<P> In 2002, Mars solicited votes in their first ever "M&M's Global Color Vote" to add a new color from three choices: aqua (turquoise), pink, and purple . Purple won and was featured for a limited time . To help the colors get votes, Ken Schrader and his MB2 Motorsports team, who was sponsored by M&M's at the time, ran four paint schemes during the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season representing the promotion (one for aqua, one for pink, one for purple, and another one with all three colors on the car .) Specially marked packages of M&M's were released in Japan . Finding a bag of all purple M&M's entitled the customer to a prize of 100 million yen (equivalent to approximately USD $852,000). </P> <P> On January 1, 2004, at the stroke of midnight, Mars removed all of the colors of M&M's and made them black - and - white on both their candies and the packaging . It coincided with a commercial parodying The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is home in bed and looks out of the window and sees what the colors of the four M&M's were . The goal was to help the M&M's find their colors in black - and - white packages of M&M's, in this order: brown, orange, red, green, yellow, and blue . After all of the colors have been found, the colored packaging returned, and began carrying the theme "Chocolate is better in color". </P> <P> Since 2004, M&M's have been available online in 17 colors, with personalized phrases on each candy on the opposite side from the "m". Released around Christmas, these custom - printed M&M's were originally intended for holiday greetings, but are now available all year round . </P> <P> For the 2008 Valentine's Day season, Mars introduced all - green bags of M&M's . This was due to common urban folklore that says green M&M's are an aphrodisiac . They were brought back for 2009 alongside the "Ms. Green Heats Up Valentine's Day" contest . </P>

How many different color m&m's are there