Culture Blip: The season's in the color

Monday, April 10th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Easter may not be in the air quite yet, but it's in the aisles of the supermarket. The pastel-colored piles of Easter candy are just the latest outbreak of a booming business - holiday-themed candy.

"We started holiday colors in the '80s" says Pat D'Amato, an M&M/Mars spokeswoman. "Back then, it was just M&Ms and it was just Christmas and Easter - red and green for Christmas, pastels for Easter."

"We added Valentine's Day in 1990. But it's been more recently that we've really been focusing on seasonal branding packages and expanding seasonal uses."

What phrases such as "seasonal branding packages" mean is that holiday candies have come a long way from specially-coated M&Ms. Every candy bar in the M&M/Mars line - including Snickers, Milky Way, Almond Joy - gets its own appropriately colored holiday outfit. And brand names are given "multiple uses" which brings consumers Reese's peanut-butter-cup Easter eggs.

The pop-culture result is that the first sign of a holiday season often is in the candy aisle.

"Our holiday-themed business is much bigger, we do a lot more stuff than we did 20 years ago," says Ms. D'Amato, adding that "we are rolling out the various holiday candies earlier every year.

"But that's really being driven by the retailers, and they feel pushed by their customers. I just think the whole holiday experience is intensifying."

And if the whole holiday experience keeps intensifying? Will we one day be living in year-round holiday seasons?

"Well, we are starting to get some overlap between Halloween and Christmas."