Halloween has been a part of western culture for a long time, but its meaning and importance changed drastically over 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. October 31st is one of the oldest celebrations in existence and originated as the last day of The Celtic calendar called Samhain, meaning “summers end”.
1. History of Halloween
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 emerge until the wave of Irish immigration caused by the Irish Potato Famine in the late 1840s. By the early 20th century, however, most of 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 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 at 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 stocks the three giants of Halloween, Mars, Hershey’s, and Rubies.
2. The success of Rubie’s Candy Store
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 an 8 % cut of the retail price, which can amount to millions of dollars without really having to do anything.
3. Walmart too makes a Big Chunk of Profit on Halloween
Of course, they do have to let Rubie 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 in Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, where Rubie’s overproduced costumes for Darth Maul because George Lucas forgot to mention that he’d shamelessly kill the best character in the whole movie. Today Rubies 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 is the biggest winner since they are the point of sale for almost every type of Halloween purchase.
And Walmart is Doing a lot more than you might believe. This article 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.