đ Lessons from the Business of Halloween
Today, weâre going to look at four key lessons leaders can take from the phenomenon that is Halloween. But first, do you know the most popular Halloween costume for kids?
Halloween is big business. This year, consumers will spend an estimated $11.6 billion on this holiday. Halloween has come roaring back post-pandemic, with spending up a whopping 31.8% over 2019, and nearly half of shoppers planned on kicking off their Halloween shopping before October.
Did you guess the most popular kids' costume?
The most popular Halloween costume this year â by far â is Spider-Man. Fully 2.6 million children plan on dressing up as the web-slinging superhero, followed by 1.8 million little ghosts, 1.7 million princesses, 1.6 million witches, and 1.5 million as their favorite other superheroes.
Me? My go-to a couple of years back was Iron Man. My wifeâs middle schoolers tell her I remind them of Tony Stark from the movie, so my girls roped me in. đ€Ł
What do you think?
Above: This year according to the National Retail Foundation, 1.5 million kids will dress up as their favorite superhero. Apparently, I fit into that category. đBonus: If you want to see the top 10 costumes for kids, adults, and pets, click here.
One business phenomenon that has continually surprised me each year is the existence of Spirit Halloween. Have you ever visited a Spirit Halloween store around this time of year?
Iâve always been fascinated by the business model of Spirit Halloween. They pop up seemingly overnight every August in abandoned retail spaces and defunct department stores and are gone just as quickly.
Spirit Halloween stores are also the subject of some hilarious memes:
You might have seen the recent meme about made-up Spirit costumesâŠ
Itâs not all fun and games at Spirit Halloween â itâs also big business.
This year, Spirit has opened a record number of stores â 1,525 across the United States. They are so optimistic about the holiday that theyâve hired 25% more seasonal sales associates and store managers than last year. In 2021, they hired 30,000 temporary staffers. Itâs a vast and lucrative operation.
The Wave Report is all about the lessons leaders can apply to grow their leadership and organizations. So my question, naturally, is, what can we learn from the business of Halloween to apply to leadership today?
Four lessons from the business of Halloween
There are a few takeaways that all leaders can learn from innovative business models and approaches to the business of Halloween.
Lesson #1: Exploit gaps in the market
The entire business of Spirit Halloween is based on turning apparent weaknesses into definite strengths.
Spirit turned a product with limited appeal and a short window of popularity into a huge opportunity. Leverage the pop-up retail model, but with a twist â do it at a massive scale and at a time of year â October â that has historically been slow for retail, turning a lull into a boom. "I didn't invent temporary sales," Spirit Halloween founder Joseph Marver told The Seattle Times in October 2000. "But I feel like I invented temporary Halloween."
đĄTakeaway: Where do you have natural lulls in your calendar? What can you do to turn that lull to your advantage? Create a special campaign, or even invent a holiday?
Spirit turned unusual surges in space or staff capacity into an opportunity for innovation. They leverage the retail apocalypse to get great deals on temporary real estate. In 2020, there were a record 12,200 store closings in the US, leaving an estimated 159 million square feet in vacant retail space as the pandemic decimated national businesses. Spiritâs business model takes advantage of this trend, turning lemons into lemonade by securing inexpensive temporary lease deals.
Spirit isnât the only business with inconsistent demands and surges in need for capacity and space â churches, sports teams, homeless shelters and many other organizations must be creative about temporary space and capacity needs. Heck, even office spaces in todayâs hybrid-remote world â either everyoneâs in the office, or no one is.
And itâs not just real estate â itâs capacity in general â staffing and technology included. Increasingly, businesses realize there are creative ways to âstaff upâ without increasing the headcount of full-time staff.
đĄ Takeaway: Think creatively about scaling up your capacity, whether physical space or specific talent or expertise. Do you really need that capacity on your books year-round? Contractors, fractional employees, flexible workspaces, and other approaches are changing the way organizations expand and contract capacity.
For example, clients hire us to facilitate their product development efforts. They can bring us in on a fractional basis to help them conceptualize and guide a new product or program to launch, but they donât need us full-time.
Lesson #2: Tap into nostalgia
A couple of years ago, McDonaldâs re-released its happy meal âBoo Buckets,â unleashing a wave of nostalgia. These originally came out in 1986, and I have no doubt that the news hit millions of Americans instantly in the feels. đ
Do you remember these??
This nostalgia play clearly worked, because reports showed that people were selling these plastic buckets for as much as $50 each online.
đĄTakeaway: How can you tap into the powerful emotion of nostalgia for your constituents?
Lesson #3: Turn seemingly irrelevant events into remarkable experiences.
The calendar is full of special days that most organizations gloss over. You might have even started reading this email, thinking, âWell, of course Spirit Halloween leverages the holiday â thatâs their entire business.â
But all it takes is a little imagination to turn an irrelevant holiday into a remarkable experience.
My daughters had a dentist appointment the week of Halloween a couple of years ago. Putting aside the question, who goes to the dentist the week of Halloween?? The king of all candy-related holidays?? I felt for them.
Some dentist offices might use Halloween to extract candy from unsuspecting children... âBring in your candy kids, and weâll give you an extra toothbrush!â
But not Kitsap Kids Dentistry. They turned the holiday into a remarkable experience. Kids were encouraged to wear their costumes to the dentist. And any kid who wore a costume got an extra prize from the prize box.
These are some happy children (at the dentistâs office, mind you!).
Even the staff got in on the fun. My girls got their teeth cleaned by a witch and Stitch! They came home glowing from the dentist's office. I would call that a remarkable experience.
đĄTakeaway: How can you turn a seemingly irrelevant date on the calendar and incorporate a remarkable experience for your customers or donors? Itâs amazing what one can do with a bit of imagination.
Lesson #4: Be willing to pivot
Did you know that Spirit Halloween started as a womenâs clothing store? Let me repeat that â a womenâs clothing store.
I didnât.
Business Insider did a piece on âThe rise of Spirit Halloweenâ a couple of years back, and I think my favorite part of the article was this story:
Before Spirit became one of the most popular destinations for Halloween costumes and decor, the company got its start as a women's clothing store called Spirit Women's Discount Apparel.
As sales at this apparel store started to plummet, Marver told The Seattle Times he was inspired to transition to the Halloween business after watching throngs of customers line up to visit a costume shop across the street from his store.
"When the costume shop moved to a new location, Marver put his dresses in storage, loaded his own store with Halloween stuff and slapped a sign on the old costume shop," Catherine Trevison of The Seattle Times wrote. "It was the best October he ever had."The next year, he did it again with a temporary space in a nearby mall and sold $100,000 worth of merchandise in 30 days."
Wow. Who knew that Spirit Halloween started as a year-round womenâs discount apparel business?
If the owner hadnât been willing to pivot and experiment with a new trend he noticed, he may never have made it and certainly wouldnât be the behemoth they have become today.
đĄTakeaway: Sometimes, where you start isnât where you end up. Observe the trends, look for bright spots, and be willing to experiment and pivot.
To recap:
Exploit gaps in the market, turning weakness into strength.
Tap into nostalgia, one of the most powerful emotions.
Turn irrelevant events into experiences, remarkable and memorable.
Be willing to pivot and experiment when you see trends and opportunities.
I hope this weekâs Wave Report was helpful to you⊠and have a Happy Halloween! đŹ
Until next week⊠Surfs Up! đ
- Dave
About the Author | Dave Raley
Consultant, speaker, and writer Dave Raley is the founder of Imago Consulting, a firm that helps non-profits and businesses create profitable growth through sustainable innovation. Heâs the author of a weekly trendspotting report called The Wave Report, and the co-founder of the Purpose & Profit Podcast â a show about the ideas at the intersection of nonprofit causes and for-profit brands.
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