Halloween has been a part of western culture for a long time, but its meaning and importance
changed drastically over the course of the 20th century.
So how did this Christian holy day become such an enormous and commercialized social
event?
Today we’re heading down the basement stairs to uncover the horrifying secrets of how Halloween
became commercialized.
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October 31st is actually one of the oldest celebrations in existence and originated as
the last day of the Celtic calendar, called Samhain, meaning “summers end”.
It was a day to honor the dead, as well as a harvest festival.
When Christianity came to the British Isles and Northern Europe, where the Celts lived,
many pagan festivals were rebranded as Christian ones and October 31st became All Hallows Eve,
since the following day was All Saints Day.
The traditions of the previous festival, however, stuck around, like the idea of leaving out
small gifts for the ghosts to keep your home protected, as well as dressing up in special
outfits.
The holiday took a while to grow in America and it didn’t really emerge until the wave
of Irish immigration caused by the Irish Potato Famine from the late 1840s.
By the early 20th century, however, most of the the ghoulish, spooky elements like fortune
telling and ghost stories were dropped.
In most ways, Halloween had become a secular family holiday, with parades and community
events.
It wasn’t until the baby boom of the 1950s that it really became a big thing for kids,
with trick or treating and all that.
Over the second half of the 20th century Halloween grew to become the most important holiday
after Christmas, particularly from a commercial point of view and in 2016, Americans spent
almost $8.5 billion during the holiday.
But how did it become so commercialized and where is the money going?
A survey from the National Retail Federation showed that in 2016, around $3 billion went
on costumes, $2.5 billion on candy, a similar amount on decorations and then $400 million
on greeting cards.
And which company has a finger in all of these pumpkin flavored pies?
Walmart.
They are the single biggest Halloween advertiser, spending $13.8 million during the 2016 Halloween
season.
They’re certainly not the only driving force behind the holiday, but it’s more than likely
that the first sign of Halloween approaching will be seen in one of their stores.
What’s more, they are going to get the knock-on benefit of advertising from many of the brands
they sell, such as Skittles, Cheetos and Lunchables, all of which are also prolific advertisers.
Walmart also stock the three giants of Halloween: Mars, Hershey’s and Rubies.
You probably know the first two.
One of Hershey’s brands is America’s favorite candy with over $500 million in sales annually.
And for the candy industry in general, including Mars, about 8% of all sales come from Halloween.
But who are Rubies?
Rubie’s Candy Store was opened in Queens, New York back in 1951.
During the 1950s they expanded into selling decorations and costumes, which eventually
became the core of their business.
By 1972 the company was called Rubie’s Costumes and was making some of the most high-quality
replica costumes in the US.
This coincided with a new trend in America: In the early 70s, Halloween costume demand
changed rapidly from the traditional ghosts and witches, to icons of the silver screen
and comic book heroes.
Big deals with Disney, DC comics and Marvel were cut early on by another company, Ben
Cooper, while Rubie’s main rival, Collegeville, made Star Trek costumes and characters from
various Warner Brothers cartoons.
Rubie’s would have never caught up if it weren’t for a national tragedy.
In 1982, 7 people died mysteriously in the Chicago area and it was found that someone
had been putting lethal doses of cyanide in Tylenol capsules, a popular painkilling drug.
People were terrified, especially as the killer was never discovered, so they became mistrustful
of many consumables, including candy.
For several years Halloween sales were abysmal, and many companies in the industry just failed.
Rubies, though, had a lot of money in the bank and survived, and in the 1990s they purchased
what little remained of Ben Cooper and Collegeville, securing almost complete control over the
world of licensed costumes.
The movie studios were also big winners here.
With costumes, they usually take a 8% cut of the retail price, which can amount to millions
of dollars without really having to do anything.
Of course, they do have to let Rubie’s into their inner circle.
The costume company is given sketches of movie characters before the studio even starts shooting,
sometimes as much as two years in advance.
Studios even give them basic plot details, so they can work out which characters are
likely to be popular.
They started doing that after a misunderstanding on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, where Rubie’s
over produced costumes for Darth Maul because George Lucas forgot to mention that he’d
shamelessly kill the best character in the whole movie.
Today Rubie’s are like the fortune tellers of American pop culture.
They look at the movie industry, video games and politics to figure out which costumes
will be popular.
So, when October comes and customers rush into Sears and Walmart, they see the Wonder
Woman outfit, the Donald Trump mask, the Pokémon suit and think “yeah, that’s just what
I wanted”.
Now, if you look at the tangled web of Halloween promotion, it’s difficult to say that any
one company is behind it all.
It’s likely, though, that Walmart are the biggest winners, since they are the point
of sale for almost every type of Halloween purchase.
And Walmart are actually doing a lot more than you might believe.
This video has been largely about the US, but what about other countries?
In the UK, Halloween has risen to become the 3rd biggest holiday after Christmas and Easter,
surpassing Valentine’s Day.
Just like in the US, costume and candy sales are on the rise, as is advertising.
This trend began at the turn of the new millennium, right around the time when Walmart bought
the second largest supermarket chain the UK, ASDA.
In Japan, Halloween was almost non-existent back then but now it’s gaining real traction.
Coincidentally, Walmart bought a big stake in Japanese supermarket Seiyu in 2003, and
had completely taken it over five years later.
Considering just how much power supermarkets have over what people see during their lives,
we should give Walmart at least a little bit of credit.
In any case, Halloween isn’t going anywhere and, in fact, it’s most likely only going
to get bigger in the future.
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