We got our first Christmas card this week! That’s crazy. They’re skipping the best holiday: Halloween!
Fortunately, not everyone is skipping the year’s most fun holiday. In fact, candy and costumes are flying off the shelves. HookLogic, a New York-based performance marketing platform, is tuned in to the research folks are doing for the national masquerade. Aggregating data from U.S. consumer searches and retailers like WalMart, Target, PeaPod and Fresh Direct, HookLogic has released a report on the leading costumes and candies of the spooking season.
Costumes: Halloween of the Mouse
Halloween is the season of monsters, right? Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, slasher film stars? Zombies! Zombies are huge, still, right? I can’t open Facebook without seeing The Walking Dead all over the place.
Not anymore! Here are the Top 10 costumes searches being done in 2016.
- Disney
- Spiderman
- Deadpool
- Descendents
- Light Saber
- Cinderella
- Ariel
- The Flash
- Stormtrooper
- firefighter/fireman
When you consider that Marvel and Star Wars are also owned by Disney, that entire list belongs to The House of Mouse except The Flash (DC, owned by Warner Bros.) and the fireman at the bottom.
I didn’t realize just how complete Disney’s pop culture domination had become until I saw that list. It’s hard to escape the fact that Disney is winning at the box office, but now they’ve got Halloween too.That’s a strong brand.
Candy: The Sweet Tradition
Unlike costumes, the list of leading candies doesn’t look much different than the stuff I used to get when I went trick or treating as a greedy teenager.
- M & M
- Hershey
- Reeses
- Skittles
- Snickers
- Ghirardelli
- Twizzlers
- Lindt
- Kisses
- Twix
- Dum Dums
- Orbit
- Nerds
- Pez
- Lifesavers
- Airheads
- Trident
- Smarties
- Altoids
- Brookside
- Pocky
- Cadbury
- Haribo
- Sixlets
- Werthers
- Toblerone
- Payday
- Brachs
- Warheads
- Milka
- Mars
- Wonka
- Rolos
- Kitkat
- Trolli
- Lindor
- Whoppers
- Crunch
- Ferrero
- Sweetarts
Next year, I fully expect Disney to launch its own line of confectionery.
Takeaways
What does this mean to us as marketers?
- Disney’s winning everything; monsters are no match for family entertainment.
- People want to wear what’s hot, but eat the old faves.
- And for the love of Jack O’ Lantern, let Santa sleep till Thanksgiving.