There is a particular kind of father who emerges every October.

He starts with a few decorations on the front porch. Then comes another inflatable. Maybe some lights. A fog machine. A skeleton. Before long, the neighbors are wondering whether this is still a house or the set of a low-budget horror movie. And for costumes — dad knows how to take those to the next level.

Welcome to the rise of the Halloween Dad. For marketers, he’s an overlooked consumer hiding in plain sight.

Halloween has become a remarkably large business. The National Retail Federation estimated that Americans would spend a record $13.1 billion on Halloween in 2025, with spending spread across costumes, candy, decorations and greeting cards. Nearly half of consumers began shopping by September.

But the interesting story isn’t simply how much people spend. It’s what they’re buying, and why.

When Dad Gets Creative

Unlike some household purchases, Halloween often gives fathers an opportunity to participate in the experience itself. A dad may not care much about the color of the kitchen towels. He may have strong opinions about the family’s Halloween decorations.

He may research the best outdoor projector. Compare animatronic skeletons. Build a homemade coffin. Figure out how to synchronize lights to music. Or spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to make a fog machine work properly. And his kids may be right there with him.

That’s part of what makes Halloween different from many other shopping occasions. The purchase can become an activity. The decoration isn’t simply something dad bought. It’s something he helped create. The costume isn’t simply an expense. It’s part of a tradition. The candy isn’t just candy. It’s preparation for the annual invasion of the neighborhood.

For brands, those distinctions matter.

Selling the Experience

The best Halloween marketing doesn’t necessarily sell a product as much as it sells the experience surrounding it. That’s particularly relevant to fathers.

A hardware retailer can sell a dad the materials for a decoration project. A home improvement brand can sell him the tools to build it. A retailer can sell the lights, props and decorations. A food brand can sell the snacks for the neighborhood party.

But the emotional appeal is somewhere beyond the product. It’s the reaction when the kids see the finished display. It’s the neighbors stopping to take pictures. It’s the family tradition that gets repeated every year.

That’s a different kind of consumer motivation, and one marketers can easily miss if they see Halloween simply as another retail holiday that appeal to only one parent.

The Opportunity for Brands

There is a lesson here that extends beyond Halloween.

Consumers don’t always divide their lives into the neat categories marketers create for them. A father can be a homeowner, a shopper, a parent, a hobbyist and an entertainer at the same time. Halloween happens to bring many of those roles together.

And it gives brands an opportunity to meet dad somewhere he may genuinely enjoy being: in the middle of the action.

So this October, marketers might want to look beyond the familiar images of children in costumes and parents handing out candy.

Look for the guy on the ladder. The one untangling the lights. The one standing in the driveway trying to assemble an eight-foot skeleton. There’s a good chance he’s not just decorating the house.

He’s building a memory.

And, quite possibly, buying something along the way.