Posted on 27th October 2023
Retailers and other big brands have been using Buzz from Shooglebox to track Halloween trends on TikTok and gather insights around the things millions of people are seeing, saying and doing.
Halloween's a huge seasonal trend on TikTok – with nearly 200 billion views of #Halloween videos – and in 2023 the excitement started to build as early as July.
Our TikTok trend-tracking service Buzz alerts subscribers to emerging trends and big talking points three weeks (on average) before they hit peak interest. It helps brands move fast to reflect relevant trends and themes in their own marketing and communication – and gives them a growing resource of visual inspiration and customer insights to feed into future product and service plans.
Here's some of the Halloween trends Buzz subscribers have been quick to see, understand and pick up on in 2023:
Charcuterie boards: It's a massive FoodTok trend all year round, and in the run-up to Halloween a big new twist on the trend has been spooky charcuterie boards featuring skeletons. This video with 18m views and 2.3m likes ties it into the "girl dinner" trend – tracked in Buzz over the summer – to create a "spooky girl dinner".
Strawberry ghosts: Chocolate treats in the shape of ghosts made by putting a spoonful of melted white chocolate on a baking sheet for the body, then dipping berries in chocolate for the face, and piping on milk or dark chocolate for the eyes and mouth. This trend caught the attention of brands like Aldi and Hotel Chocolat who've made their own.
Other big food trends include chocolate pretzel spiderwebs, ghost bark, pumpkin-shaped baked brie and Jack-o'-lantern stuffed peppers.
DIY cauldrons: Arts and crafts enthusiasts on TikTok and Instagram making their own cauldron decorations with baubles, diffusers and dry ice to create the illusion that they're bubbling and smoking.
Boo baskets: The concept of a "boo basket" – containing an array of comforting items like blankets, clothes, food, mugs, toys and books – took off in early September as people started preparing for the cold and darker nights. One of the first big TikToks was by American influencer couple @maya.and.hunter (15m views, 2m likes). British TikTokers started joining in several weeks later, making boo baskets for their partners, children and even pets. Ashleigh Money Saver, who shares bargain deals and money saving tips on her page, teamed up with The Works to show how to make a budget version with items from £1.
This graph shows the evolution of #boobasket according to data from TikTok's Creative Center. It hit peak interest between the 8th and 14th of October – more than a month after subscribers were first alerted to the trend by Buzz.
Spooky date nights: Millions of views on TikToks from people organising Halloween-themed date nights with partners and friends – often involving ghost or pumpkin-shaped pizzas.
"Halloween filters pick my make-up": Beauty accounts applying a series of filters to decide their Halloween make-up, like make-up artist @hollymurraymakeup (11m followers). The videos show people applying a series of TikTok effects and then recreating the randomly generated designs and colours with make-up in real life. They're often soundtracked with Undead Tombstone's remix of Spooky, Scary Skeletons.
"I am an autumn": Lots of Halloween videos use the "I am an autumn" sound quote from the Rory's Birthday Parties episode of Gilmore Girls – more than 80k videos over the last three months.
Halloween AI filter: Millions of TikTokers this year have been having fun with filters that use artificial intelligence to enhance their photos. One popular AI-generated CapCut template in the final weeks of October has been used more than 4m times – creating spooky scenes out of photos of people, pets and random objects.
Brands are using tools like Shooglebox to gather real-time insights from TikTok for a much more important reason than spotting short-term trends their social media teams can join in with. In the past brands and mainstream media saw it as their role to set the trends and fashions their customers would follow. In the age of TikTok and social media it's their own customers who create and drive the trends – and it's the brands who race to keep up.
If you're interested in signing up or finding out more about Buzz get in touch here.
