As one of the biggest seasonal events in the local retailing calendar, Halloween is now a major sales opportunity – and there’s plenty of themed products to help build a spookily good fixture.
- Halloween is now one of the biggest seasonal events in the retail calendar and is enjoying huge year-on-year growth.
- The total Halloween season is worth £1.2bn [Kantar, Nov 2017].
- Halloween itself is worth over £300m [IRI, May 2018]
- Around 85% of shoppers bought a Halloween item last year [IRI, May 2018]
Dr Oetker
What’s the focus?
“The home baking category sees uplifts in sales during the key seasonal periods such as Halloween, Easter and Christmas,” says Riccardo Panichi, Head of Marketing Cake & Dessert at Dr Oetker UK. “As one of the most creative occasions of the year, home bakers are looking for inspiration and excitement in store during the run-up to Halloween. The season is all about elaborate spooky decorations and there is a 29% uplift in value sales of cake decorations during this period, proving the potential for sales [IRI, Oct 2017].
What’s new?
Panichi says the key home baking products to stock for Halloween are Dr Oetker’s Fine Cook’s Chocolate, Regal-Ice Ready To Roll Icing, and Extra Strong Gel Colours. “Chocolate is a key trend this year and this will continue into Halloween,” he says.
“Food Colours are some of the most essential products for Halloween baking. In 2017 Dr. Oetker launched its New Extra Strong Gel Food Colours, which are twice as strong as the original gel colours and offer 50% more per tube.”
Tangerine Confectionery
What’s the focus?
Retro sweet specialist Tangerine Confectionery has identified ‘kidulting’ as a key market trend – the notion of adults looking to treat themselves with the sweets they remember from their childhoods. Halloween is the perfect opportunity for adults to explore their inner ‘big kid’ and share these memories with their children.
What’s new?
Tangerine is launching a 450g branded Barratt Halloween Bucket containing a mix of Refresher Rolls, Dip Dabs, Mini Wham Bars, Mini Fruit Salad Bars, and individual 30g bags of Dolly Mix, Cola Bottles, and Shrimps and Bananas. The bucket format is ideal for shoppers stocking up for trick-or-treaters or for sharing at a big night in.
The Barratt Halloween Bag (180g), featuring a mix of retro heroes, including Dip Dab lollies, Fruit Salad lollies, mini Refresher rolls, and mini Wham chew bars.
Premier Foods
What’s the focus?
“Halloween is the third-biggest season for us here at Premier Foods and we focus heavily on it with both the Mr Kipling and Cadbury Cake brands,” says Steve Kelly, Channel Director.
What’s new?
This year the Mr Kipling Fiendish Fancies and Terrifying Toffee Whirls will be making a return, alongside the addition of new Cadbury Pumpkin Patch Gateau. Available from October, the gateau makes a great centre piece for Halloween parties and gatherings, providing eight portions.
The company is also advising retailers to stock Bonfire Night-related products as well. Available from October, Mr Kipling Toffee Apple Slices and Chocolate & Marshmallow Slices bring warming flavours that fit well with the Bonfire Night occasion. Cadbury Cakes is also launching Mini Bonfire Logs, a twist on the mini roll, with honeycomb sponge and creme.
Coca-Cola European Partners
What’s the focus?
“Like Coca-Cola is to Christmas, Fanta is to Halloween,” says Amy Burgess, Trade Communications Manager at Coca-Cola European Partners. “The brand is a key driver of soft drinks growth during the four-week Halloween period. Whilst overall soft drinks grew by 3.7% [Nielsen, Nov 2017] during Halloween last year, Fanta saw a boost of 26% and this was accelerated by more consumers picking up Fanta Zero than ever before.”
What’s new?
Fanta is back this year with another Halloween activation supported by a multi-million-pound marketing campaign that includes digital and outdoor advertising, social media and Twisted Carnival experiential activities. This year will see the return of limited-edition ghoulish on-pack graphics and an on-pack promotion with Snapchat.
The brand is also unveiling its spooktacular winning flavours from the Fanta Flavour Election which kicked off in April 2018. Burgess explains: “We teamed up with four popular influencers who each have large social media followings, reaching a combined 4.4 million Facebook and 712,000 Instagram fans. Each influencer represented a new Fanta flavour and encouraged consumers to vote for their favourite flavour via online prank videos which gained 18.7 million views and made it into the top 10 sponsored videos in April on Facebook.”
After more than 150,000 votes, Fanta Blood Orange Zero and Fanta Pink Grapefruit Zero were named the winners and will be joining the brand’s portfolio for Halloween, available in 2-litre formats. Both variants are Soft Drinks Tax-exempt and are naturally-flavoured containing no sugar or calories. The Blood Orange Zero will also be available in a limited-edition 6 x 250ml pack format with Halloween pumpkin graphics.
Mondelez International
What’s the focus?
Confectionery accounts for around 29% of all Halloween sales [Kantar, Nov 2017] and Mondelez International is the second-largest confectionery player in the Halloween market with a product range that meets each Halloween occasion: self-treat, trick or treat, Halloween parties and big night in.
What’s new?
New for Halloween 2018 are Cadbury Goo Heads, available in creepy skeleton, pumpkin, Frankenstein, Dracula or werewolf variants. Available individually (RSP 55p) or in a pack of five (RSP £2.85), the products aim to offer value and convenience to customers. Launched alongside are Cadbury Goo Head Minis (RSP £1.49), a smaller format version ideal for sharing.
Maynards Bassetts Creepy Chews (RSP £2.51), launched for the first time last Halloween, will also return for another season.
Mars Wrigley
What’s the focus?
To help retailers leverage Halloween, Mars Wrigley has conducted comprehensive research into the occasion. The key findings include:
- In 2017 confectionery drove Halloween growth by 7% [Nielsen, Nov 2017]
- The growth was largely driven by a shift in demand towards Sharing Bags and twistwrap confectionery as consumers look for Trick or Treat and Big Night In confectionery options.
- Funsize and sharing grew at 6.5% and 5.7% respectively.
- The biggest ritual remains Trick or Treating, with 41% of consumers taking part. With confectionery an integral aspect of this, many consumers overbuy a mix of both chocolate and sugar confectionery in both funsize formats and sharing bags to ensure they have as many treats available for trick or treaters as possible.
- Watching a scary movie is also becoming an increasingly popular ritual in the run-up to Halloween. Thirty-one per cent of consumers watched a scary movie at home last year across the Halloween period [Nielsen, Nov 2017].
What’s new?
Skittles will be taking consumers back to the dark side for the fourth year running. Containing five frightening flavours (Forbidden Fruit, Midnight Lime, Blood Orange, Pomegranate and Dark Berry), Skittles Darkside is available in funsize format (RSP £1.39), alongside Skittles Fruits (RSP £1.39), both ideal for the Trick or Treat occasion.
Mars Wrigley also launched limited-edition M&M’s Crunchy Caramel recently to combine the second most popular flavour in the bitesize chocolate category with the world’s number one confectionery brand.
Ferrero
What’s the focus?
Ferrero will be concentrating firmly on growing the sales of its Kinder Choco-Bons brand with a new range of packs and supporting POS.
Levi Boorer, Customer Development Director at Ferrero UK, comments: “Last year, we saw a 68% uplift in sales during the key seasonal period, thanks to our Halloween-inspired packs.”
What’s new?
With those thoughts in mind, the £120m Kinder brand is giving its 200g Choco-Bons sharing packs (RSP £2.92) a monster-themed makeover for the second year running. The newly-designed packs will be supported with a sampling campaign and publicised on social media throughout October.
Each pack includes individually-wrapped bite-size chocolates – ideal for sharing with trick or treaters this Halloween.
Swizzels
What’s the focus?
“For us, Halloween is the biggest calendar event for sugar confectionery and this year is set to be no different,” says Swizzels Sales Director Mark Walker. “Swizzels sees its share of sugar confectionery double at Halloween compared to the rest of the year. Halloween 2017 was Swizzels’ most successful yet with sugar sales at Halloween up +5% growth [IRI, Nov 2017].
A ‘Halloween Sorted’ campaign will feature across the brand’s website and social platforms.
What’s new?
As well as its Drumsticks, Love Hearts, Double lollies and Refreshers brands, new for Halloween 2018 is the Treat Time tub. The 420g tub is a fun selection of Swizzels’ most popular brands in a bright, modern and convenient format, ideal for sharing over Halloween.
Barr Soft Drinks
What’s the focus?
Barr is focusing on helping retailers create theatre and excitement in-store by displaying fun, affordable products that appeal to consumers stocking up for seasonal parties or trick or treaters.
“The Halloween occasion represents a significant opportunity for retailers to grow sales during what is now a key period in the UK retail calendar,” says Adrian Troy, Marketing Director at Barr Soft Drinks.
“Soft drinks and confectionery are the biggest profit drivers [IGD, Nov 2015], with shoppers stocking up on take-home packs of soft drinks for parties and smaller packs to hand out to trick-or-treaters.”
What’s new?
Troy advises retailers to focus on the following Halloween bestsellers:
- Irn-Bru, the No.1 Scottish grocery brand [Kantar, May 2017], available in Regular, Xtra and Sugar Free variants.
- The Barr Family Range, Scotland’s most popular range of flavours growing at 18% [IRI, Jul 2018].
