Halloween Shopping

I've lost track how many Halloween themed advertisers we have on one of my radio stations, everything from the zoo to a Haunted Castle are on our airwaves this month. Check this out:

Retailers Go With Discounts for Halloween

For Halloween, what are consumers telling Madison Avenue they consider creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, and altogether ooky? High prices.

This Halloween is the third in a row for which marketers and retailers are playing up discounts, deals and bargains rather than goblins, ghosts and vampires. With the economy continuing to bewitch, bother and bewilder shoppers, the goal is to encourage purchases even if they take place at sale prices reminiscent of post-Halloween clearances.

For instance, a circular for the Michaels chain of craft stores promises "monstrous savings" and "spooktacular buys on Halloween décor," including prices that are 25 to 40 percent off.

The Ultimate Halloween catalog from the Party City retail chain offers up to 50 percent off on costumes like piglets, cyborg aliens, punk creeps and Wednesday Addams. "Nobody has more Halloween for less," the cover proclaims.

Amazon.com sent e-mails to customers that also offered up to 50 percent off on Halloween costumes, along with free shipping.

And ads for Target, introducing a line of Halloween costumes by Simon Doonan of Barneys New York, tell customers they can "look drop-dead gorgeous" at "a wicked va-va-value."

The price-conscious pitches for Halloween reflect that "everything is about price now, everything," said Candace Corlett, president at WSL Strategic Retail, a consultancy in New York.

"Halloween is one of those holidays we went way overboard for" during the boom years, she added, which has turned it into "a symbol of excess."

"Now, we’re going back to Halloweens more like the 1980s, when it was a fun holiday but not a big-spending holiday," Ms. Corlett said.

Fortunately for consumers, she added, "Halloween is a holiday you can get by without spending a lot."

The Six Flags amusement parks are taking $10 or $20 off the admission prices for their annual Fright Fest events in various markets for customers who bring cans of Coca-Cola when they buy tickets.

"Additionally, we've got a very aggressive season pass offer this year," Brett Petit, senior vice president for marketing at Six Flags in New York, wrote in an e-mail. For example, patrons who buy passes for 2011 now will receive free admissions for the rest of this year, including Fright Fest.

Six Flags has signed the Snickers line of candy bars sold by Mars to be the presenting sponsor of Fright Fest. That is not the only effort Mars is making to stimulate sales for Halloween.

In addition to running television commercials and print advertisements with Halloween themes for M&Ms, which Mars has done for many years, the company is also, for the first time, using Halloween themes to hawk two other candy brands, Snickers and Milky Way.

Candy sales have been increasingly lately, said Debra A. Sandler, chief consumer officer for the Mars Chocolate North America unit of Mars in Hackettstown, N.J., and "some of it is driven by the fact we remain an economical treat, something you can do for yourself that’s affordable."

"We see there’s still growth for our products," she added, which explains the addition of the "Halloween-specific advertising" for Milky Way and Snickers.

In the commercial for Milky Way, grown-up trick-or-treaters are greeted at a door by a skeptical girl. Challenged about their age, one adult explains that he had a "growth spurt." An announcer ends the spot by saying, "You’re never too old for smooth Milky Way caramel," and the words "Halloween's better the Milky Way" appear on screen.

In the commercial for Snickers, a shopper in the candy aisle of a supermarket is greeted by a masked stranger.

"Hellooooooooo, Mrs. Jensen, you don't have any Snickers in your shopping cart," the stranger says in an odd voice, adding: "The neighborhood kids love Snickers at Halloween. Let me help you."

The stranger tosses so many bags of Snickers into the cart that the shopper, rattled, runs off. The stranger, it turns out, is actually two children, one atop the other, hidden under an oversize coat.

"This Halloween," an announcer says, "nothing satisfies like Snickers."

The campaigns for the three candies are by BBDO New York, part of the BBDO North America unit of BBDO Worldwide, which is owned by the Omnicom Group.

Another big marketer, General Mills, is dressing up its three so-called monster cereals -- Boo Berry, Count Chocula and Franken Berry — in new boxes and putting them on sale at Target stores from Sept. 26 through Oct. 31 at a suggested price of $2.50 each -- well below what cereals often cost these days.

The reduced pricing is "because we wanted to make sure everyone can get in the spook-tacular fun of the season," Susanne Prucha, marketing manager for the monster cereals at General Mills in Golden Valley, Minn., wrote in an e-mail.

Beginning this year, the three cereals will be sold only for a limited time leading up to Halloween, Ms. Prucha said.

"Historically, October accounted for half of all monster cereal sales throughout the year," she added, "so we wanted to focus our efforts on this pre-Halloween period that is so important to the monster cereals consumer."

In another sign of the impact of the economy on Halloween, the selling season began early in many cities, a week before Labor Day weekend.

"The idea is to make sure to find people when they feel they have a little money to spend," Ms. Corlett said, regardless of what the calendar says.

There is another potential benefit for sellers that peddle Halloween products so early, she added: "If it's candy, guess what? It gets eaten before Halloween" and has to be replenished for the holiday.

(Source: The New York Times, 10/05/10)

Sphere: Related Content