Nostalgia’s Surprising Role in Driving the Gum Category Forward
As the world's top gum maker, Mars Wrigley is driving category growth through backend insights and data to meet the evolving needs of consumers. To ensure product innovations continue to surprise and delight shoppers at retail, Mars consistently keeps a pulse on what motivates consumers—rolling out on-trend offers within the resilient gum category.
With the rise in popularity of products inspired by “nostalgia,” EXTRA® saw an opportunity to innovate on flavor. The release of EXTRA® Gum’s Pink Lemonade taps into this trend via the love we have for this beloved summery flavor, with each refreshing bite ushering in memories of friendship, youth, and belonging.
One of Mars' most iconic and nostalgia-inducing brands, HUBBA BUBBA, has added a playful product to its lineup—HUBBA BUBBA Mini Gum. The new poppable gum format features fan-favorite SKITTLES® Original flavors, including lemon, strawberry, grape, orange and lime. Marking the first new gum format from the brand since 1988, this latest innovation stays true to the brand's bubble-blowing core while giving consumers a fun, new, candy-like taste to enjoy.
Previously, gum was all about freshening breath. Now, consumers turn to gum in different ways, and for different occasions. Earlier this year, ORBIT brought a fan-favorite ORBIT flavor to a new whitening form, White Sweet Mint soft chew gum, which delivers a confidence boost with every refreshing bite.
In addition to the new flavor line-ups, Mars has created innovative packaging and offerings. For example, sustainable packaging was launched with the ORBIT® How2Recycle Label on Megapacks in 2021 and Mars responded to shoppers’ evolving requests for a wider variety of offerings by creating EXTRA Refreshers Fruit Mix and EXTRA Pink Lemonade last year.
The gum segment is growing, and Mars is excited to be at the forefront of driving category growth with a portfolio of diverse, well-known brands that offer satisfying benefits in many moments of consumers lives.