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Workweek Newsletter {beacon}

Daniel Murray

Oct 6th, 2026

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Hey Marketing Bestie,

Us marketers sure can learn a lot from our Marketing fore-fathers and fore-mothers.

Consider this a parade for the greatest marketing campaigns in memory.

Welcome to Marketing Classics 411, a new kind of ancient history.

In place of hieroglyphs, expect to decipher the campaigns of yesteryear.

Professor Millennial teaches every Tuesday (remotely), via electronic mail.

Class is now in session.

Was this email forwarded to you?

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How Spirit Halloween Took Over Spooky Season and Expanded Beyond The Grave(s)

Being in the “right place at the right time” isn’t just a matter of luck.

It takes skill to recognize emerging trends and shifts in consumer behavior before your competitors do.

Taking a leap and acting on these insights can be downright scary.

It might be even harder to pivot when you already have an established brand.

Experimenting, shapeshifting, whatever you want to call it, can spook loyal customers and investors.

They may feel abandoned or tricked.

Unless it’s a treat.

This is the story of... Spirit Halloween.

The Marketing Millennials Professor Murray (31).png

It’s the early 1980s.

Joe Marver owns a discount women’s clothing store located in a mall in Castro Valley, a suburb of Oakland, California.

Joe Marver, king of Halloween, in an Elvis costume. Because of course.

Business is slow that day. Every shopper seems to be visiting just 1 store, and...it’s not Joe’s.

Joe watches from his own shop, puzzled. It’s the dancewear store, but there’s no way all those shoppers need leotards or jazz shoes.

Then a terrifying sight: ghosts, witches, the Grim Reaper…yep, the dancewear store’s selling Halloween costumes, and customers are lined up outside.

The next year, Joe adds Halloween costumes to the racks at his women’s clothing store. They sell faster than the acid-washed jeans and neon leg warmers.

In 1983, Joe makes a big bet on Halloween after the dancewear store closes.

He buys out a Halloween trade show, puts everything but the racks and registers into storage, and temporarily turns his women’s clothing store into a Halloween store.

For 1 month, Spirit Women’s Discount Apparel becomes Spirit Halloween.

The Dead Inside Dat Hat is giving me life.

A BOO-MING BUSINESS 👻

The store’s an instant hit. Joe makes $100K in just 30 days, equivalent to ~$336K today.

Joe’s never considered himself a big Halloween guy, but he LOVES this new business model.

A model he basically invented and scaled to scary new heights: the temporary pop-up.

Meanwhile, Hollywood’s in a horror boom. A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, It, the Halloween franchise, and more introduce a variety of frightening new fictional characters.

Joe sources trending costumes, along with the classics, and opens another pop-up Spirit Halloween the next fall. Then another. And another.

In 1999, Spirit Halloween has 60 temporary locations, and gets acquired for an undisclosed sum by Spencer’s Gifts, every Millennial’s mom’s least favorite mall store.

And that’s just the beginning…

Spencers Spirit Holdings now brings in an estimated $2B in annual revenue, with the majority of that being Halloween profits.

In September, it acquired Hot Topic, BoxLunch, and Her Universe for $350M. So the pop-up that began as 1 mall store now owns a big slice of the entire mall, all year long.

PUT IT IN PRACTICE

Too often, marketers notice a trend, which leads to an idea, and then…nothin'. Brilliant ideas get abandoned all the time, especially when we overthink and come up with excuses not to pursue them.

The worst is when another brand (or horror, a direct competitor) has the same lightbulb moment and pulls it off. No one gets credit for the genius idea they never act on.

Here’s your homework:

1️⃣. Identify 1 emerging trend for a brand experiment.

This doesn’t have to be a complete overhaul or huge investment. It might be as simple as a new social trend, tweaking copy to align with consumer behavior, or trying something different on the back-end.

2️⃣. Test it and take notes.

If it’s a success, think of a way to keep experimenting. If it’s a failure, it was just an experiment!

3️⃣. Test again to confirm your findings.

Successful or not, once means 1 time. Try again to see if your initial results are accurate before making any big moves.

TOP OF THE POP-UPS 🧟‍♂️

Spirit Halloween is the world’s #1 Halloween store, despite not having ANY permanent storefronts, and being open just 3 months per year.

“Over My Dead Body!” coming in 3, 2, 1….

There are more than 1,550 Spirit Halloween stores open now, staffed by more than 52K temporary workers, but you’d better visit soon.

By November 1, most will vanish like a mass retail apparition.

But behind the scenes, their work isn’t done after the candy bowls have been ransacked.

Unsold merchandise goes back to Spirit Halloween’s warehouses, their only permanent real estate. Then a small full-time team buys new merchandise and scouts locations for next season.

(FYI: If you need a costume the rest of the year, you can still shop online.)

Uh-huh. This one’s a keeper. Yip-yip-yip.

Spirit Halloween’s highly efficient business model keeps overhead remarkably low.

Stores are 5K-50K square feet and can go from raw space to open in about 30 days.

Marketing efforts are focused on the 3 months stores are open. Spirit Halloween’s on all the usual channels, but operates more like an experiential marketer.

Because shopping at Spirit Halloween has become a fright of passage, an annual tradition in the U.S. and Canada.

Shop if you dare…

The store FEELS like a haunted house, with immersive themed environments, interactive displays, and motion-sensored animatronics designed to scare the crap out of you.

It’s retail entertainment.

This year, select stores will be transformed into Camp Harbor Lake, with an abandoned cabin and outdoorsy animatronics inspired by campfire tales and ‘80s horror.

TRICK, TREATS, & TRENDS 🎃

Spirit Halloween’s rise has serendipitously coincided with the growth of Halloween spending and a shifting retail landscape.

In 2024, Americans were expected to spend $11.6B celebrating Halloween, with nearly $4B on costumes.

Halloween wasn’t always such a huge consumer event.

The Halloween boom started in the 1970s with the introduction of cheap, mass-produced costumes.

But the real reason Halloween’s so popular?

IT’S US!

Millennials and Gen Zers love the holiday so much, it’s become a seasonal lifestyle.

Plus, the National Retail Federation just reported that 47% of consumers are using AI to research Halloween purchases.

And now, many of us are parents, and raising our kids to love Halloween.

No bad ideas in a brainstorm.

Halloween’s the perfect Marketing holiday, because it’s always the same day, loved by all ages, associated with consumable goods (candy), and pop culture inspires different costume trends every year.

Not to mention that it falls between back-to-school and BFCM.

Even in tough economic times, Americans spend on Halloween.

In 2024, Saturday Night Live skewered Spirit Halloween’s pop-up business model in a satirical sketch that touched on retail vacancies.

The Halloween juggernaut clapped back.

Shots fired.

Temporary pop-ups have always been Spirit Halloween’s bread and butter. It was once a little guy retailer that became a Halloween empire, even as the O.G. big guys floundered.

Spirit Halloween’s store locator names the former tenants of some of its retail spaces to make them easier for shoppers to find.

Of 1,299 stores listed on July 29, 2026, nearly 30% formerly housed JOANN, Big Lots, Rite Aid, or Party City, once a direct competitor.

Spirit Halloween’s success has also made commercial landlords more open to short-term, flexible leases, paving the way for other pop-up businesses.

A temporary store’s better than no store at all, right?

BEYOND THE FAKE GRAVE 🪦

In 2024, Spirit Halloween ended spooky season with the sequel nobody expected: Spirit Christmas.

It’s exactly what it sounds like.

The challenge is, everyone does Christmas. Ornaments and decorations are used year after year. Kids love Christmas, but adults call the shots.

Watch out for the animatronic elves. You know they’re in there…

Spirit Christmas started with 10 stores in 2024. Then 30 in 2025. With plans for 43 stores in 15 states in 2026.

To maximize efficiency, 38 will start as Spirit Halloweens and completely flip inventory, decor, and vibes by November 6!

This isn’t Spirit Halloween’s first trip to the North Pole. It’s been testing temporary toy and Christmas stores since 2009.

If there’s 1 thing we know from Spirit Halloween, it’s that you don’t rise to the top by jumping in a crowded market.

You watch what’s starting to happen quietly around you, experiment, and then go ALL IN. Without going into a financial ho-ho-hole. 🎅

MARKETING CHEAT SHEET (WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS STORY):

1️⃣. Watch, listen, experiment.

Joe methodically tested his Halloween hypothesis after seeing another store’s success selling costumes. He started by adding a few costumes to the racks at his women’s clothing store. When that was successful, he went all-in on a Halloween pop-up. But he only slightly changed the store name, so customers wouldn’t be confused.

2️⃣. Go deep, not wide.

Once Joe realized Halloween was the ticket, he went deep, evolving with the trends and changing inventory to fit consumer preferences.

After years of testing temporary toy and Christmas stores, Spirit Christmas launched in 2024 with 10 stores. The footprint has grown conservatively. The goal is to maintain the same business model, earning champagne revenue on a beer budget.

3️⃣. Never forget the spirit of your business.

Halloween’s supposed to be fun, scary, and over the top. So Spirit Halloween specializes in retail entertainment, with stores that feel like shoppable haunted houses. Shoppers can interact with props, try on masks, and scream freely when a giant animatronic zombie jumps at them.

Making Spirit Halloween an IRL destination protects it from being undercut by online competitors.

WORKWEEK