How Mars is shifting its retail strategy for Summerween

Once a two-month period ushered in by cooling temperatures and the return of school, Halloween season has crept into summer, becoming the longest retail season of the year.

That’s thanks to Summerween, a Gen Z-driven warm-weather celebration that’s risen in popularity over the last few years.

A recent survey from candy giant Mars found 59% of the generation are aware of the holiday, and 30% participate in it. Beyond Gen Z, a survey from Hershey and Morning Consult found 67% of parents had already purchased Halloween candy as of early July. Most other confectionery companies are leaning in, too, with Nestlé rolling out Summerween cookie doughs in July and Brachs announcing the start of candy corn season in early August. This comes as Halloween candy has grown from $3.1 billion in 2022 to $3.9 billion last year, per NRF (with help from higher chocolate prices and inflation).

Tim LeBel, chief customer officer at Mars Snacking North America (who is also its chief Halloween officer), told Retail Brew the holiday has jumpstarted a “shrinking” six-week season into one that takes over nearly half the year, starting in June, which means the M&Ms and Snickers maker has had to shift its strategy to meet consumer and retail partners’ needs.

“It truly has become our largest season across any calendar year; it’s no longer a Halloween week or a Halloween night event,” LeBel said.

New tricks: Mars typically plans for the Halloween season two years in advance, debriefing the season’s performance with its retail partners in November, LeBel said. They break down the price points, pack sizes, flavors, and textures that consumers connected with to optimize Mars’s plan for the following year. Mars then digs into consumer insights to plan its Halloween portfolio two years ahead.

In the years after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Halloween retail season was getting smaller, spanning only late September through October, LeBel said. Now, Mars’s Halloween candy season extends from June to October 31. Hershey also said this year that the Halloween season now accounts for a third of its year.

That means Mars now must have 50% of its Halloween products made and ready to ship by early May, LeBel said.

Mars’s previous summertime marketing focus was largely summer road trips, but now it kicks off Halloween in June with the launch of Halloween variety bags and shapes. This year, it introduced a new Twix skull and brought back its Snickers pumpkins, products that are favored by retailers because they’re high-margin “immediate consumption items,” aka products consumers eat right away—maybe even in their cars in the parking lot—LeBel noted. Hershey’s recent report similarly noted Summerween serves a “different emotional need” of a “spontaneous and personal ‘treat for me’” than the main Halloween season.

LeBel said for Mars to introduce the season in a “gradual way,” June, July, and early August feature smaller center-store displays in retailers, before shifting to larger front-of-store and main aisle displays with its full product portfolio when the season is in full swing.

Mars now sells more than 120 Halloween-themed items, up from last year’s 90+, with price points and pack sizes ranging from 15-count to 400-count to “try to meet consumers where they are” amid “economic challenges,” LeBel said.

Ghost town: While the majority of Halloween sales still occur in the last two weeks of the season, the expansion of Halloween into the summer months has contributed incremental sales for Mars and bigger basket sizes for retailers.

“Halloween is a traffic driver,” LeBel said. “It builds loyalty with their consumers and it drives the longer season, which is a win-win for the industry and for the retailer.”

As a privately owned company, Mars doesn’t report earnings, but LeBel said the company’s dollar and unit sales have been positive in 2026—a challenge among many CPGs, including its competitor, Hershey—which has further strengthened its retail relationships for Summerween and beyond.

“When you can drive units, dollars, and margin, you have what we call a mutuality value creation that is sustainable, repeatable with retailers. They’ve really, really jumped on [Summerween] and bringing it to life through in-store,” he said. “If I would have thought I had to have Halloween ready for May, call it 10 years ago, I would have said that’s a dream…but now it’s the reality.”