Sea­son­al mar­ket­ing is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands, and one that is grow­ing every year. Increased use of mobile devices, and an uplift in the use and con­sump­tion of social media and video has meant there are more ways today for brands to reach and engage con­sumers. Hal­loween is no excep­tion, and there are many ways for brands to cap­i­tal­ize on the hol­i­day.

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Mar­keters love Hal­loween just as much as con­sumers. It gives every­one a chance to dress up, even brands. For them, it might mean the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go ‘off-brand’ a lit­tle and have some fun, and in all cas­es it gives brands and con­sumers plen­ty to talk and get excit­ed about.

After all, Hal­loween is a bil­lion-dol­lar indus­try. In 2013, the Nation­al Retail Fed­er­a­tion (NRF) esti­mat­ed that 158 mil­lion Amer­i­cans would be par­tic­i­pat­ing in Hal­loween fes­tiv­i­ties, spend­ing a total of $6.9 bil­lion. In total that’s an aver­age spend of $75.03 per per­son.

This year’s spend­ing is fore­cast­ed to be even high­er. The NRF fore­cast that total U.S. spend­ing will reach $7.4 bil­lion, with 162 mil­lion Amer­i­cans tak­ing part, mak­ing a total spend of $77.52 per per­son. An ICSC sur­vey gave an even high­er pro­jec­tion, esti­mat­ing total U.S. spend­ing to exceed $11 bil­lion.

Mar­keters rec­og­nize the oppor­tu­ni­ties afford­ed by Hal­loween, and 49 per­cent say they will launch a hol­i­day cam­paign before Hal­loween, accord­ing to Exper­ian Mar­ket­ing Ser­vices.

Halloween Stats & Strategies For 2014

1. Consumers are ready to spend in 2014, but make sure you’re offering deals and discounts that represent good value for consumers.

Accord­ing to the Nation­al Retail Fed­er­a­tion:

• 162 mil­lion Amer­i­cans will take part in Hal­loween in 2014, spend­ing a total $7.4 bil­lion.
  • $2.8 bil­lion will be spent on cos­tumes.
• 16 per­cent of peo­ple will turn to pop cul­ture for cos­tume inspi­ra­tion.
  • Frozen and Teenage Mutant Hero Tur­tles are expect­ed to be two of the most pop­u­lar cos­tumes.
• Half of shop­pers will turn to dis­count stores for Hal­loween pur­chas­es.
• A quar­ter of shop­pers will make their Hal­loween pur­chas­es in gro­cery stores.
• A third of peo­ple will start their Hal­loween pur­chas­es before Octo­ber.
• A fifth of shop­pers say their Hal­loween spend­ing will impact­ed by the econ­o­my.
  • 20 per­cent to make rather than buy cos­tumes.
  • 8 per­cent will not hand out can­dy this year.

2) Cross-channel campaigns will define Halloween marketing in 2014.

Accord­ing to Exper­ian Mar­ket­ing Ser­vices:

• 83 per­cent of busi­ness­es are plan­ning to run cross-chan­nel mar­ket­ing cam­paigns dur­ing the Hal­loween sea­son.
  • A fur­ther 59 per­cent of these stat­ed that they planned to use online dis­play adver­tis­ing.
  • 55 per­cent also favored email mar­ket­ing.
  • 46 per­cent intend­ed to use print.
  • 30 per­cent planned to use search.
  • 24 per­cent mobile.

And the Nation­al Retail Fed­er­a­tion report­ed that:

• 34.2 per­cent of adults will use organ­ic search for cos­tume inspi­ra­tion.
  • 33 per­cent will wait until they get to a store to decide on a cos­tume
  • 13.5 per­cent will look for inspi­ra­tion via Face­book.
• 21 per­cent of 18- to 24-year-olds will use Pin­ter­est for cos­tume inspi­ra­tion.

3) Brick-and-mortar stores to make up 90% of purchases. Use digital to incentivize in-store purchases.

Accord­ing to ICSC:

• An incred­i­ble 90 per­cent of Hal­loween pur­chas­es will be placed in brick-and-mor­tar stores, with online pur­chas­es due to be respon­si­ble for just 7 per­cent of over­all spend­ing.
• 64 per­cent of con­sumers said sales or the low­est price was the biggest influ­encer in their Hal­loween pur­chas­es.
• 31 per­cent said the abil­i­ty to phys­i­cal­ly see, touch or try on the mer­chan­dise was the biggest influ­enc­ing fac­tor.
• 29 per­cent said con­ve­nience/one-stop shopping/good park­ing would influ­ence their deci­sions most.
• 34 per­cent of spend­ing will take place at dis­count stores.
  • Super­mar­kets are expect­ed to grab 18 per­cent of pur­chas­es.
  • Cloth­ing and cos­tume stores expect­ed to make up 13 per­cent of pur­chas­es.
  • Drug store chains will take 11 per­cent of pur­chas­es.
  • Whole­sale clubs will take 9 per­cent of pur­chas­es.

Get inspired for Halloween

With a lit­tle cre­ativ­i­ty, the oppor­tu­ni­ties are end­less. The next few weeks will see mar­keters launch­ing cre­ative Hal­loween cam­paigns. To help get inspired, here are a few exam­ples of the most impres­sive Hal­loween con­tent from last year.

Booking.com — Haunted

There are few things that chill the spine more than a poten­tial stay at a haunt­ed hotel. Booking.com’s ‘Haunt­ed’ select­ed the finest hor­ri­fy­ing movie hotels for thrill-seek­ers to stay in over Hal­loween.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lh7D2LMpTQ

giffgaff — Different Takes Guts

Switch­ing mobile net­works takes guts. Lots of them. A sim­ple mes­sage that made for the most grue­some cam­paign.

 

REI — Zombie Survival Guide

Admit it — nag­ging at the back of your mind every now and again is what your course of action would be when the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse is upon us. Thank­ful­ly, out­door cloth­ing and equip­ment retail­er REI have pro­vid­ed this help­ful info­graph­ic with some handy sur­vival tips.

Tide — Scared Stainless

Tide did a series of fan­tas­tic homages to clas­sic hor­ror films.

And kick­ing off pro­ceed­ings for 2014 in dra­mat­ic fash­ion, watch this hilar­i­ous video of a man who dressed his dog up as a spi­der. (p.s. 97 mil­lion views at time of post­ing!)

This par­tic­u­lar video isn’t an exam­ple of brand­ed con­tent but it shows the poten­tial of con­tent, and how nice­ly it can be tied into con­sumer spend­ing. U.S. Hal­loween spend­ing on cos­tumes for pets alone reach $330 mil­lion in 2013 (NRF Sur­vey), and is expect­ed to reach a sim­i­lar fig­ure this year. How much of that spend­ing will be spent on dog­gy spi­der cos­tumes?

Brands have an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty over Hal­loween to reach and engage con­sumers, espe­cial­ly if they are set up to launch a cross-chan­nel dig­i­tal offen­sive on social media, mobile, and video. Expect to see some com­pelling con­tent launch­ing in the next few weeks.

Be sure to keep up with mar­ket­ing activ­i­ty over Hal­loween on momen­tol­ogy.

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Share your favorite exam­ples of Hal­loween con­tent mar­ket­ing from pre­vi­ous years!