Katie Ferro
Spooky season has arrived, and the festivities of Halloween are fast approaching! To celebrate this fun and frightening occasion, we ran a quick survey to pick the juicy brains (too zombie?) of our Soapbox panel members and asked 300 parents with children aged 13 or under to share their thoughts on Halloween! These respondents shared with us their favourite costumes, treats, purchasing behaviour and whether door knockers at their homes will be receiving a trick or a treat this year! Find out what they had to say…
Of the 300 respondents engaged for this study, one-third resided in NSW, one-third resided in VIC and the final third featured a mix of all other Australian states. We also had an approximate gender split of 1:3 Males and Females, and a 1:2 ratio of Regional and Metro respondents, respectively.
Despite the rising popularity of online shopping, only 5% of respondents said that they would be using online channels only to purchase Halloween items this year. 70% of these parents said they would make these purchases only in-store (35%) or through both channels (35%) – while the remaining 25% informed us that they won’t be making any purchases this year. The majority of these purchasing parents expected to spend less than $100 on items this year, with approximately 25% spending less than $25, 25% spending $25-50 and 20% spending $50-$100. With nearly half of these respondents spending the majority of this money on lollies (37%), there will be plenty of treats about!
Of the 300 parents surveyed, only 40% said that their family would be trick-or-treating this year. Fortunately, of these participating families, 100% mentioned that their children would be dressing up in their best and scariest Halloween costumes when taking the streets in search of sweet treats, with just over half of participating parents getting in on the dress up action too (52%)! So which type of Halloween costume did our respondents claim to be among the best for the occasion? In keeping with the scary theme, it might come as no surprise that according to these parents, the most popular costumes are the classics. Witches/Wizards took the prize with 45% of respondents ranking it among their favourites, followed closely by Vampires (43%) and Ghosts (43%).
Similarly, only approximately 40% of parents surveyed said with certainty that their household will be handing out treats to those that knock on their door this Halloween, with 23% still undecided. To help those participating treat-givers out when making their treat purchase decision, we asked our parents which types of treats their children liked the most. The winner was unquestionably lollies, with over 70% of respondents selecting this type of treat, closely followed by chocolate (60%). Lollipops also proved a popular choice (44%), with liquorice appearing more of a trick than a treat as only 4% of parents selecting the aniseed sweet as a child favourite.
We were also curious to gain some answers to some popular questions asked on Halloween night; how old should children be before they can trick-or-treat without a parent, and at what age are kids too old to take part? Our parents believed a range of different ages at which they would let their children trick-or-treat by themselves, however the ages of 12 and 13 were the most popular (21% and 18% respectively). These same parents also shared a popular similar belief when it came to the age at which kids were too old to trick-or-treat – quite simply, you’re never too old! 30% of our parents believed that trick-or-treaters can be any age, while 32% believed that 15 and 16 year olds should be putting away their treat bags.
Finally, we asked these parents if they were aware of the true origins of Halloween, aside from the lollies and costumes. With the festival being widely an American tradition, it was interesting to note that 63% of these parents believed they did know the true origins of Halloween.
So as the month of October draws to an end, and all the ghouls, werewolves and vampires prepare to come out of the darkness, we wish you all a very spooky Halloween this year – may there be more treats than tricks!
These findings were gathered from the Soapbox Halloween survey.
For more information, please contact Katie Ferro, Managing Director at katief@crnrstone.com.au.
