Halloween is the time to do some spooky and scary stuff. Go trick or treating. Throw some parties. Or carve a few pumpkins and watch some scary movies at home. But how big has the spooky festival grown and how is the business behind it? Lets find out.
Before we jump into the business side of it, lets look at how it all started.
It all started about 2000 years back when Celtics celebrated a festival called Samhain. People at the time believed that on the night before Samhain, that the people who passed away returned as ghosts. Food, wine and other things were kept at the doors to keep them at bay. The people would dress up in costumes while going out to confuse the spirits which had returned. Pretty smart, I know.
In the 8th century the Church changed Samhain to All Saints day or All Hallows eve, the night before Samhain which is 31st October. Fast forward to 1840s, during the Potato famine there was a wave of Irish immigrants who travelled to America and brought their culture with them.
The Irish kids would prank people and sometimes even steal gates, later on the Americans decided to give treats to the kids in order to prevent them to carry out their tricks. In the 1950s, the festival evolved to its kids centric and festive day that we know it as today.
Alright, with history aside lets move on to the business side. We all go ahead and purchase candies, costumes and Halloween decorations, but ever wondered how much it all adds up to?
Well the Halloween spending is expected to reach $10.6 billion this year. With people now buying costumes for their pets as well, the spending just for animal costumes is expected to be around $710 million. Companies operating in the candy/chocolate industry see a good rate of increase in their revenues. They even start preparing for the Halloween rush months before the day.
Earlier Halloween was mainly for kids but now with adults participating in the celebrations, reports suggest that sales of kids costumes is now second to those of the grown ups.
Outdoor decorations are also expected to drive the sales up this year, as consumers have reported that they would like their surroundings to be spooky as well.
With retail corporations like Walmart and Home Depot jumping onto the trend and their careful planning while placing their products, people just shell out more money. Imagine you visit a Walmart store with your kid but have no intention of buying any Halloween decorations or costumes, but your kids eye falls on something and you decide you spend on it. Well, that’s just more money being spent. In other words more profits.
The rise of social media over the recent years has also led to the growth of the Halloween industry. With the rise of TikTok and Instagram the festival has now spread to other continents as well, where it wasn’t celebrated earlier. A lot of people in Asian countries did not celebrate it some years back, but now they too have jumped on to the trend.
Now, lets move to the movie industry. Halloween is the perfect time to release horror flicks. Now, whether it mints money or not is a whole different story, because the story matters as well. The popular movie franchise Halloween also released its latest flick “Halloween Ends”. Its crossed $95 million at the global box office so far.
Even streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney promote horror movies during the time. Sometimes, even release a few new ones during the season and capitalize on the spooky time of the year.
Lets move to the gaming industry now. Konami release the new trailers for their horror game franchise “Silent Hill” about a week and half before Halloween. Now, I am looking forward to these games and see how they are going to be post the whole Silent Hill PT saga.
Capcom released the trailers for the Remake of their masterpiece Resident Evil 4 at pretty much the same time as Konami. Perfect time to promote, if you ask me.
Darkwood, an amazing survival horror game from 2014 released the trailer for the Playstation 5 edition 2 days before Halloween.
Ebb software released their survival horror game called Scorn on 14 October 2022.
Well, if you are going to advertise something scary, then I think that the time around Halloween would be perfect. Everyone’s in the mood for something scary and might as well just pull out some cash and purchase it.
Video game sellers even promote games through sales. Mobile gaming companies add special skins and in game items that can be purchased during Halloween and make money through micro transactions. Popular games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, Battlefield and PUBG use these strategies a lot. I mean there are hardcore e-sports players who are willing to buy that new item just to improve their chances of winning a tournament. They don’t shy away from spending.
Game developers even create that urge to buy the in game items by selling them only for a limited period of time.
Advertising a scary or spooky thing during Halloween makes perfect sense as the marketing campaign could be done at a considerably lower amount when compared to doing the same at a different time of the year.
Well, these were some of the scenarios where Halloween has turned into a multi-billion dollar business. What are your thoughts on this and how do you think the business side of Halloween would grow in the coming years? Let me know in the comments below.
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