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Montclair Study: Barbie Dominates the Halloween Costume Conversation on Social Media

A study of more than 46,000 social media posts and a Google Trends analysis finds Barbie costumes are more popular than costumes for Ken, Star Wars and Marvel characters

Montclair, NJ (10/26/2023) — Move over, black and orange, and step aside for the color that is going to dominate Halloween this year, "Barbie Pink." And yes, Ken, "it won't matter what you do, you will always be number two," at least when it comes to Halloween costumes in 2023. And those wildly popular Star Wars and Marvel character costumes traditionally seen during the "spookiest" time of the year? It seems they won't match the popularity of the fictional character, Barbie, who reemerged this year on the pop culture scene after the incredible success of the Warner Bros. film "Barbie" released in July.

A team of faculty from the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University today released its most recent study, with this one focusing on 2023 Halloween costume trends. Highlights from the study utilizing Brandwatch and Google Trends include:

  • Google Trends offered the most popular costumes ranking through their "frightgeist," highlighting key Halloween costume trends powered by searches. According to this frightgeist, Barbie is the most popular costume of the year for Americans.
  • From October 1 to October 24, internet interest in Barbie costumes was 273.6% higher than activity for Ken costumes, according to the conducted Google Trends Analysis. Given the predictive nature of search interests on consumers' purchasing intent and social behavior, the data implies that Barbie costumes will almost certainly be much more popular than Ken outfits. As was noted in Ryan Gosling's song in the film, "doesn't seem to matter what I do, I'm always number two."
  • From October 1 through October 24, a Google Trends analysis showed interest in Barbie costumes was 787.5% higher than activity for Marvel costumes and 545.4% higher than activity for Star Wars costumes, as indicated by the Google Trends Analysis. Like Ken, the trend analysis shows that this Halloween likely means more pink with fewer lightsabers and superhero capes.
  • With more than 277,000 social media conversations observed around Halloween during October 1 through October 25, more than 30% of the conversations surrounded Halloween costumes. Of those conversations, more than 46,000 social media mentions discussing Barbie and Ken costumes were collected on Brandwatch, specifically. The co-occurrence "Barbie" and "popular Halloween costumes" among social conversations saw a steep 61% increase in October. Supporting Google's data as the most searched costume of the year, social conversations on Barbie and Ken costumes revolved around the anticipation of Barbie and Ken being the best costumes for Halloween 2023, from where to get Barbie costumes, deciding which Barbie to be (e.g., Cowgirl Barbie), and anticipating celebrity couples to dress up as Barbie and Ken (e.g., Taylor and Kelce).
  • Social media users also enthusiastically shared their intention to dress as Barbie or Ken. Users gushed about the excitement of creating a "pink utopia" for this Halloween, which was specifically associated with key words such as "ridiculously fun," "spirit," "family-friendly," "Barbieland," "neighborhood coordination," etc. With 48% of the conversation being contributed by males, there was excitement and sarcasm surrounding those dressing up as Ken.

"It seems that Barbie has successfully made a return in 2023, prevailing again at the pinnacle of popular culture. More than 46,000 social conversations in the month of October centered on Barbie and Ken costumes," said Dr. Jin-A Choi, assistant professor of Advertising at Montclair. "News outlets, brands, and events were keen to seize this opportunity during this Halloween season to use Barbie and Ken as keywords and hashtags to jump aboard the hottest Halloween trend and enhance the visibility of their messages."

"Barbie, once an arcane hobby, has torpedoed all other traditionally favored Halloween costumes, such as princess, spider-man, witch, batman, fairy, vampire, or ninja," noted Dr. Yi Luo, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication at Montclair. "Especially, the association between pink and Barbie has been exponentially amplified through online searches and discussions on social channels."

The study was conducted by faculty Dr. Jin-A Choi, Dr. Yi Luo and Dr. Bond Benton. It is the tenth study released from the School's Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication, which provides social media analytics tools and training for faculty and students for classroom learning and research projects.

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Building on a distinguished history dating back to 1908, Montclair State University has evolved from an institution that was a recognized leader in teacher education to an R2 research institution ranked as one of the 100 best public doctoral universities in the nation. The University serves 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students with more than 300 doctoral, master's and baccalaureate programs provided by 13 colleges and schools.

Situated on a beautiful 252-acre campus just 12 miles from New York City, Montclair delivers the instructional and research resources of a large public university while retaining the supportive and personalized academic environment that provides a feeling of community more typical of smaller institutions.

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