Given the success we are having with Halloween, I decided to immerse myself into the season as a consumer this year. This meant welcoming trick-or-treaters at the door with candy and hosting a dinner party with costumes and ghoulish food delights.
From the starter of eyeballs two ways through to the Phantom Ginger Cake for dessert, there was total immersion in the Halloween experience. Kids came to the door dressed, a whole crowd at one time. I dressed as an irradiated nuclear plant worker. It was a blast, heaps of fun.
The experience has broadened my view of Halloween. It has certainly changed how I look at Halloween from a business perspective. I have a personal context now for how this season works on different levels for kids and adults and how we can leverage this next year to make Halloween bigger and better and more fun in-store.
While we are unlikely to reach the level of engagement in the US, where two-thirds of the adult population dress up or engage with the evening, there is no doubt that Halloween will get bigger here and that it will morph from just a kids fun time to something in which all ages participate.
To those who eschew Halloween as a Amercian commercial season I say – get over it. It’s harmless fun for adults and kids.
Halloween will be a more significant commercial season for us next year!
We had great sales success with Halloween this year. Just as important however was the ‘feel good’ nature of it all. It brought lots of smiles and kids seemed to have so much fun with it. I was skeptical a couple of years ago, but I really hope the season does get bigger here in Australia.
As a kid I was always told “Halloween is an american thing we don’t do it in Australia”.
This year I did some research into the history of Halloween and was very suprised. It is actually quite a multicultural event with contributions from the Gaelic, the Catholic Church, the Irish, the american and many more just to name a few.
Now that I have children on my own I must admit I will be taking advantage of this opportunity to have some fun, just for the sake of having fun!!
In years gone by we have heard negative comments about Halloween being american and it having no relevance here in australia. This year we invested in some halloween stock and all our staff got dressed in costume for the day. The amount of positive comment from customers because of the effort we had made was nothing short of amazing. I think regardless of opinion it`s a chance to have some fun with our customers and family
Cheers
Al
We had a great time with the Halloween theme for the Lotto superdraw. Being a remote store I had to get my daughter to sedn up some goodies to enhance our diplays. the youhge staff loved dressing up – me too
and I don’t think our little town had sseen anything like iit. Customers came iin with their cameras and have been appearing today with copies for us. A great success. Carol
A lot of kids and adults got into halloween this year. I’m still of the “it’s mainly american” sort of mindset, but i’ll concede that it is fun. Some customers got a fright out of the dress ups and costumes though which was a laugh.
Retail can be fun since we have more seasons to play around with and have fun with it at the same time.
halloween is a cult, it should not be encouraged to kids. 🙂
Eric , Lighten up and have some fun. An ordinary day in business can be pretty boring. we are now planning ou Christmas theme – but for tose who don’t believe in Santa…? Carol
Halloween is fun – certainly not meant to be taken too seriously.
Eric for you the world is flat, sinners should burn, Mary was a prostitute and liver is an acceptable meal with brocoli and Lima beans.
We had a ball. Staff dressed up all week and customers came in everyday to see what the theme of the day was. One or two said it’s American or just commercial but so us Xmas remember the image of Santa was thought up by coco cola.
Having fun in your shop or don’t do anything.
Brad
What does an irradiated nuclear plant worker look like?
Eric, it would appear that some people didn’t notice your smiley at the end of your message.
Brad,
A company called White Rock Beverages used the image of Santa BEFORE Coke did. They used it in the 1920’s while coke did not use the image until the 1930s.
Thanks Daniel I’ll sleep better for the update. Mayby I should have used a smiley face.