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Editorial
Oct. 31 continues to be increasingly popular holiday
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A hardware chain in the Omaha area is getting national exposure for its marketing plan exploiting the increasingly popular holiday of Halloween.
And, it's reading the public pulse accurately, marketing home security equipment as a defense against the zombie apocalypse.
According to the National Retail Federation's annual survey, more than 2.6 million men, women and children plan to dress as zombies this Halloween. Thanks to recent books, television shows and video games, zombie costumes have climbed from No. 22 to No. 9 on children's top costume list, and from No. 7 to No. 4 on the adult list.
It's a commentary on the true state of the economy, and Americans' choices, that we will spend $310 million on Halloween costumes this year -- for our pets. We will spend a billion dollars on costumes for our children, $1.2 billion for ourselves, and the average person will spend $72.31 on Halloween candy, costumes and decor, for total spending of $6.86 million.
According to the NORI survey, traditional costumes are still our favorites, with witches our top choice at 13.4 percent, pirates 3.9 percent, and vampires 3.7 percent. Two point 2 percent of us will go out as Batman, the same percentage as cats, and 2.1 percent as vixens.
For kids, the top choices are princesses, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, fairies, Disney princesses and vampires.
For pets, 10.7 percent will be humiliated as pumpkins, 8.1 percent as devils, 6 percent as hot dogs; paradoxically, 3.7 percent plan to dress their pet up like a cat, and 2 percent like a dog.
According to Yahoo, the top searched adult costumes this year are Star Wars, followed by vampires, Pan Am costumes, superheroes, Catwoman, eighties, Indian and the Wizard of Oz.
Who knows how many revellers actually go out dressed this way, but the most controversial costume searches, according to Yahoo, include Charlie Sheen, Casey and Caylee Anthony, Amanda Knox/Jessica Rabbit, Osama bin Laden and Chaz Bono.
Top celebrity search costumes this month include Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perr, Justin Bieber, Snooki, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Taylor Swift and, of course, Charlie Sheen.
However you celebrate the holiday, make sure you and your children do it in a safe and sane way.