Halloween is just around the corner, which means carved pumpkins on every doorstep, fake spiders weaving spooky webs across front yards – and lots and lots of candy. In preparation for the scariest night of the year, people across the country are stocking up on bags of candy so as not to disappoint a single trick-or-treater.
In the spirit of the Halloween season, we decided to put ConsumerBase to work to figure out what the world of social media has to say about which candy they would most like to find in their bag. To do this, we looked at the emotions, behaviors and passions associated with the following candies: Kit-Kat, Snickers, Reese’s, Candy Corn and Butterfinger.
ConsumerBase returned some very surprising results, showing that Candy Corn, the most classic of Halloween treats, polarizes its social media audience, turning up as more trick than treat. Snickers, Kit-Kat and Reese’s scored high on the “Like” quadrant of the graph, with Snickers gobbling up the most chatter of all of the candies featured.
In this graphic, the amount of sentiment and chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.
Butterfinger scored as the most loved of its sugary competitors, coming the closest to the upper right quadrant out of the five candy bars. Verbatim found by ConsumerBase reflected fan loyalty and devotion that ranged from the grouping of Butterfinger as a food group to the ways in which Butterfinger has become a brand firmly rooted in social media:
My definition of food is Butterfinger candy bars
Candy Corn, on the other hand, a treat that has symbolized Halloween for generations, turned up the most passionately negative sound bites, showing that it may be consumed more for the Halloween tradition that it represents, rather than its delicious taste.
Other than simply ‘sugar’, candy corn doesn’t seem to have any flavor to me
Halloween isn’t Halloween without candy corn!
So which treat will you be dropping into the bags of all of the ghosts and witches showing up on your doorstep? Drop me a line to let me know what you’re looking forward to this Halloween – and check back next time as we head to the skies to see which airline soars above the rest, just in time for Thanksgiving travel season.
Lisa Joy Rosner
The Brand Passion Index, other cool ConsumerBase insights, and thoughts on understanding the social media universe from Lisa Joy Rosner, NetBase CMO.
