Halloween is the number one holiday for candy consumption in the U.S. While it may be true that candy companies used to take it easy and let the costume-clad tradition boost their sales single-handedly, confection producers are now using Halloween-specific marketing techniques to garner more sales.
Last year, over 400,000 Americans were polled about their favorite candy by an Arizona news site. The winners – Hershey’s, Nestle Crunch, Butterfinger, and Kit Kat – are all active on social media, engaging with their fans on a daily basis. It’s no surprise that around this time of year, they target their online audience with Halloween planning tips – from fun crafts, to polls about levels of preparation for the holiday, and more. The idea behind this technique is to optimize seasonal sales by leveraging their influence on popular social media sites.
Can’t get enough of costumes and confections? See these sweet statistics on projected candy sales and consumption this Halloween, gathered by POPAI, the Global Association for Marketing at Retail:
- A record number of adults – 71.5% – plan to celebrate Halloween this year.
- 96% of adults intending to celebrate Halloween say they’ll spend about $23 on candy – which adds up to $2.3 billion spent on candy sales nationwide!
- Trick-or-treaters have weighed in on Halloween favorites with their taste buds: 68% prefer receiving chocolate, followed by lollipops at 9%, gummy candy and gum tied at 7%, with 9% leftover for other varieties.
- 26% of households plan to go big or send trick-or-treaters home with full-sized candy in their baskets of treats.
- Many parents admit to getting sneaky on this spooky holiday, with 90% of them admitting to secretly taking treats from their kids’ collection of Halloween loot.
Here’s to a sweet and spooky Halloween filled with your favorite candied treats!
To learn more, please contact Barbara Gassaway and the market research specialists at Observation Baltimore today by calling 410-332-0400 or click here! And if you are interested in participating in a future focus group, sign up at https://observationbaltimore.com/get-paid-baltimore-maryland-get-paid-cash-opinion-baltimore-md/.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn!
Sources:
Drawing more useful insights from social media data
Trick or Treat! Halloween Candy Boosts Retail Cash Flow