Even though Mars Wrigley has been planning for Halloween 2020 since 2018, there’s no way for the maker of M&Ms, Skittles, Snickers and Twix to know how the big candy season will unfold.
The pandemic continues to reshape how consumers shop, including a decrease in-store trips—especially to convenience stores—and an increase the use of online grocery shopping. With large gatherings still limited in many parts of the country, it remains to be seen whether people will host Halloween parties or will even be comfortable answering the door for trick-or-treaters.
“In a typical planning cycle, we would start actually two years out,” Mars Wrigley Chief Halloween Officer Tim LeBel says on the latest episode of the Marketer’s Brief podcast. That’s when LeBel, whose primary title is president of sales for Mars Wrigley U.S., and his team begin working with research and development and key retailers on trends, pack designs, innovations and flavors, he says. Then, about a year out, Mars Wrigley brings its ideas to retailers and starts planning the details of the season.
“Right after Fourth of July, we hit the ground running. But 2020 has been a pivot, for sure,” says LeBel.
In April, Mars Wrigley started to reach out to retail customers about the evolving plans for this year’s festivities.
“Halloween will still happen but it may look significantly different,” says LeBel. Some customers were still “very, very bullish in April and other customers were very, very concerned—rightfully so.”
Now, LeBel says, some of those bullish customers are more conservative, and vice versa. He's “very optimistic” that there will be trick-or-treating as well as "trunk-or-treating"—when families park in a common area and kids go from one decorated car trunk to another, collecting candy—across the U.S., though perhaps not in every market.
In 2019, overall U.S. Halloween season confectionery sales rose 1.4 percent to $4.6 billion, according to the National Confectioners Association, an industry trade group.
