The global search engine Google’s Frightgeist tool is an experiment from GoogleTrends and reveals the top US Halloween trends in real time, reflecting the most popular searches across America as they happen.
As Halloween approaches and people begin to think about their costumes, trick-or-treaters and adults alike turn to Google for inspiration. As such, the company has a treasure trove of data at its virtual fingertips, which it has pooled and released as the clever Frightgeist tool.
In revealing the year’s most-searched-for Halloween costumes in the US, Google Trends has identified 2017’s most popular Halloween costume in the US (Wonder Woman), but also breaks the information down state by state.
Tracking the best costumes with up-to-the-minute search results, the Google Frightgeist tool can display this data in several ways – by top trending costumes, state-by-state or via a Costume Map which lets you see which outfits are trending where (and it’s no surprise that clowns are big in Stephen King’s home state of Maine…).
The top trending costumes, nationally, are currently:
- Wonder Woman
- Harley Quinn
- Clown
- Unicorn
- Rabbit
- Witch
- Mouse
- Pirate
- Zombie
- Dinosaur
Google has also introduced a Costume Wizard, which can help consumers pick an outfit based on a variety of factors, like spookiness level, or level of uniqueness.
America’s Halloween Breakdown
According to America’s National Retail Federation, 179million Americans will spend $9.1billon celebrating Halloween in 2017, with $3.4billion of that total going on costumes.
The trend for decorating houses and front gardens means that the US spend a not-insignificant $2.7billion on decorations and props. On average, each consumer is predicted to spend around $86.12 on Halloween product.
