365 Days of Halloween

Halloween may be officially over for 2019 but at Mars Wrigley, it is a 365 day operation and we’re already getting ready for the 2020 season. As you may know, I’m the President of Sales at Mars Wrigley, but few months at the end of the year, my role shifts to become the Chief Halloween Officer, a title exclusive to Mars Wrigley. As Chief Halloween Officer, it is my job to ensure that Mars Wrigley is ready for our biggest day of the year and while my title doesn’t officially change until October, Halloween is truly a year-round job that couldn’t be accomplished without all our Associates.

The season is serious business for Mars Wrigley. NRF data shows that consumers spend more than $2.6 billion on candy and $8.8 billion total on the holiday, further evidence that Halloween is growing as a major moment not just for confectionery companies, but for consumers too. Mars Wrigley runs a year-round operation to ensure we deliver all treats and no tricks on October 31st. 

Just as Halloween fanatics plan their costumes in advance, Mars Wrigley starts to prepare for Halloween more than two years out. In 2017, the R&D and Insights team looked for trends to inspire the products you see on shelves now. At the one-year mark, the product and marketing teams bring those ideas to life through testing prototypes and packaging and weighing input from our consumers to make sure everything is spot-on. Then, at about six months out, we start to manufacture in our sites, so we can deliver candy to our retail partners by the start of fall in time for the Halloween season.

But none of this would be possible without our Associates. From the way we plan, prepare and deliver the season no detail goes unnoticed but most importantly we take the time to celebrate. It’s important for us to take the time to recognize our 7,000 talented and dedicated Associates who are delivering a best in class season year after year and that we have a lot of fun along the way. Being the authority on Halloween you can bet we’re also the authority on fun. Where else can you show up to work in your office and sit across from Princess Jasmine, Thing 1 and Things 2 and have the occasional Zombie (or Chief Halloween Officer) roaming the halls? But don’t just take my word for it, this year some of our marketing teams came together to bring Halloween to life in a music video, Best House on the Block.

And of course, we never forget to celebrate the holiday ourselves. Across all of our site locations in the U.S., we celebrate Halloween with thousands of you from our in office celebrations, local Halloween parades and trunk or treats, to our costume donations in Newark, D.C. and Chicago. In fact, this year marked our 5th annual Mars Wrigley presents the M&M’S Newark Halloween Celebration and costume drive where we give out costumes to over 5,000 members of the community.

I am so proud to be just one of the many people who bring this season to life for Mars Wrigley. After two years of innovation and collaboration it’s pretty satisfying to see our Associates’ hard work come to life in the smiles we bring to consumers. Thank you to our Associates, brand fans, consumers and customers that are creating better moments every Halloween. I may be hanging up my pumpkin suit for another year but you can bet we’re already hard at work creating a bigger and better Halloween 2020 and even 2021.

We have fun. We innovate. We explore and we work towards making our work a better place today and every day. Click here to learn more about our work, culture and people.