The Serious Brand Strategy Behind Silly Halloween Costumes

The idea started with Duke the dog. The golden retriever is the pet of Jay Bush, brand ambassador for Bush’s Best, the well-known brand of baked beans. Duke is also the star of the brand’s TV spots, which usually feature the canine “talking” to his human about the Bush family’s secret recipe, which includes bacon and brown sugar. Duke also appeared in Bush's Super Bowl spot in February, as much of a star as his sidekick Peyton Manning. The personable pooch has more than 17,000 followers on Instagram. But even brand manager and head of customer experience Kate Rafferty was to be surprised over how far the fandom had gone. As Halloween rolled around last October, people began dressing up their dogs as Duke and, at times, they dressed as Duke themselves—posting photos and pinging headquarters. And that got Rafferty thinking. Bush’s already sold a range of apparel including sweaters, hats and flip flops. Why not create a Halloween costume, too? “We’re a lighthearted brand and looking silly for Halloween is part of our brand DNA,” Rafferty told Adweek. “It felt natural for us to have some fun.” A dog costume was presumably an option, but Rafferty decided to go all out. Working with Bush’s apparel designer, her team came up with two wearable cans—the chili bean variety and traditional baked beans. Now, devotees of Bush’s can head out trick or treating while looking fresh off the grocery store shelf. With Halloween a week away, now’s the time when millions of Americans are choosing their costumes from the plethora for sale. Increasingly, their options include the chance to dress as their favorite brand—not just characters like Spider-Man and the Little Mermaid, but actual packaged goods. A bag of Cheetos, a bottle of Heinz ketchup, a Crayola crayon, a White Castle burger box—all are official, licensed costumes selling at Spirit Halloween this year, to cite just one retail outlet. Leaving aside the question of who likes beans enough to dress like a can of them, however, Bush’s entrance into the field is an opportunity to address the bottom-line question behind all of the fun: Is a goofball Halloween costume merely a gesture to a handful of devotees, or does it genuinely benefit a brand? And if it does, how? Customers dressing up as Jay Bush and his dog Duke prompted the company to start selling costumes. Weird night, serious dollars Over the last two generations, Halloween has morphed into one of the biggest, and most lucrative, holidays. According to the National Retail Federation, 73% of Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year, spending $12.2 billion to do it. And while a lot of that money will go to purchasing candy ($3.6 billion), still more ($4.1 billion) will be spent on costumes. Despite worries about inflation, Americans are expected to drop $5.50 more on a costume this year than they did in 2020. And though making one’s own Halloween costume remains a tradition for many celebrants, according to a 2023 survey by TopCashBack, the majority of getups—66%—are now bought online or in retail stores. Little wonder, then, that so many brands have turned their intellectual property—characters especially—into costumes. According to Google Frightgeist, a ranking developed through search data, three of the top 10 costumes this year are proprietary characters: Wednesday Addams (No. 6), Spider-Man (No. 3) and, in the top spot, Barbie. “Brands are always looking for new ways to get people's attention, so it makes sense that brands would try to infiltrate the culture with their own Halloween costumes,” said branding expert Chris Kocek, author of the just released book Any Insights Yet? “Halloween is a huge photo-taking and photo-sharing holiday, as people dress up in unusual, ironic or provocative ways. If you’re a brand, why not go for it with a costume?” The value of humor Of course, if you’re fortunate enough to be Warner Bros., convincing kids to dress up as Batman or Catwoman probably isn’t a hard sell. The same goes for, say, Star Wars characters or superheroes from the world of Marvel. These figures have the advantage of being cool to start with, and the mutually beneficial relationship between brand and fan is well established. But a brand assuming that legions of people will want to dress up as retail packaging is shakier bet. So why would a company busy competing in its own segment invest the time and money to create a Halloween costume? To start with, it’s probably not for the income. “Whether it translates into additional revenue for these brands isn't necessarily the point,” Kocek said. “What brands typically want more than anything is to be part of the cultural conversation.” Indeed, in the case of Bush’s, the $44 costume doesn’t furnish enough of a profit margin to make dollars alone a reason to offer it. “We're not viewing it as a revenue stream,” Rafferty said. “We view it as a marketing channel: People want to engage with us, and we want to engage with them. It’s just one more way to do that.” That engagement pays off in two significant ways. First, because Bush’s has already built its brand image around tongue-in-cheek humor (remember, Duke is a talking dog), giving customers a chance to dress as a can of beans serves to underscore that association by letting them take part in it. “It feels authentic and it feels genuine,” Rafferty said. “It makes you laugh and puts us top-of-mind with that emotion.” In addition, Bush’s is aware that, for all its popularity with adults, Halloween is still a holiday built around kids. And since most youngsters don’t naturally lend themselves to shopping for canned beans, a branded Halloween costume represents an opportunity to introduce the product to tomorrow’s shoppers in a way that’s interactive and, critically, doesn’t feel like advertising. “It’s definitely a way for us to reach those younger customers,” Raffery said. “It’s a way to bring relevance and cultural salience to mind.” Kooky customers are best Drew Griffiths, divisional vp of marketing and social media for Spirit Halloween—with 1,500 locations, it’s the largest Halloween retailer in North America—suggested another benefit for consumer-product brands that create costumes: It’s a unique opportunity to cater to a product’s hardcore fans who, once suitably attired, will likely turn into enthusiastic (and unpaid) endorsers. “If you're a superfan of a brand, why wouldn't you want to dress up as one [of these products]? There's one time a year when you have a good excuse to do it,” he said. The costumed fan, then, becomes “the world’s best bumper sticker for a day.” As he sees it, the fact that a product costume is inherently kooky virtually assures that a person willing to put it on is already pretty nuts about the brand—and enthusiastic customers make very good ambassadors. Product costumes have enjoyed increasing prominence on Spirit Halloween's shelves in the last three to five years. During that time, the retailer has partnered with several brands to develop and sell costumes, including a Dunkin’ cold brew, a box of Crumbl cookies and, this year, a cup of Kung Fu bubble tea. For its part, Bush’s has opted to go it alone and sell its own costumes without a retail partner. But Rafferty has no concerns that the cans won’t find enough takers. “We put it out in the last week or so, and we’re already seeing excitement from a social and a sales perspective,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll be sold out in the next week or so.”