As marketers look to streamline the path from discovery to purchase, Mars is expanding its digital retail strategy through its shoppable Instagram experience ahead of Halloween, joining competitors Hershey and Ferrero, which are on TikTok Shop.
The company’s recently launched @MarsGlobal Instagram channel, which has 38.3 thousand followers as of this reporting, invites consumers to browse and purchase products directly from content designed around seasonal occasions and everyday usage moments.
The move comes shortly after Mars outlined its vision for a future retail landscape increasingly shaped by AI-powered digital commerce, automation and immersive shopping experiences that contribute to a smaller environmental footprint.
For Halloween, Mars features a range of seasonal confectionery products, including Snickers Pumpkins, Twix Skull, Twix and Snickers Ghoulish Green, Skittles Shriekers, Skittles Pop’d Creepy Crunch, M&M’s Halloween blends and M&M’s Milk Chocolate Pumpkin Pie. The shoppable content also includes snacks such as Pringles Original Spooktacular Snack Cups, Cheez-It Original and Pop-Tarts Frosted Pumpkin Pie.
The channel additionally highlights recipe content, including Ben’s Original Spooky 7-Layer Dip, as well as pet-focused offerings from Greenies, Pedigree and Cesar.
The multi-billion dollar sales opportunities in social commerce
Mars enters a social commerce market that has become a multi-billion-dollar business driven by billions of active users worldwide.
Facebook accounts for 18% of global online social shoppers, while Instagram and TikTok each hold roughly 17%. YouTube and WhatsApp follow at 11% and 6%, respectively, according to Capital One Shopping data.
Instagram (owned by Facebook/Meta) in particular offers significant reach. The platform has more than 3 billion active users globally, with more than 70% using the platform to shop, according to Dataopedia data. That translates to a potential audience of more than 2.1 billion shoppers. Instagram’s shopping and social commerce features, which launched in 2020, generated $42.8 billion in sales in 2025, up 15.1% from $37.2 billion the prior year, per Dataopedia.
TikTok Shop, which launched in 2023, generated $15.82 billion in sales last year and reaches an estimated 1.54 billion users globally across more than 15 million merchants, according to Capital One Shopping. The firm projects that by 2028, 46.1% of TikTok users will make purchases through the platform.
Social commerce’s booming growth in sales reflects why CPG brands increasingly view social commerce as the digital equivalent of the impulse shelf through shoppable posts, in-app checkout, live shopping and creator-driven content. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok allow brands to close the gap between product discovery and checkout.
