ROGERS: Halloween sales indicate need for creativity

A full month before Halloween, surfing the Internet for wigs, noting the endless supply of Michael Jackson numbers, I wondered who would pay $39.95 to look like Billy Mays or $29.95 to shake acrylic polyester Farrah Fawcett locks. Ed McMahon costumes seemed to be in high demand, along with various incarnations of Heath Ledger — from his own likeness to his now legendary interpretation of The Joker.

It seemed then that Halloween was about two things: dead celebrities and "dead presidents."

Market analysts predicted a holiday spending slump earlier this month, including an 18 percent drop predicted by the National Retail Federation. According to economic experts, Americans weren't going to drop their Jacksons and Franklins — the $5.7 billion they spent last year — on Halloween 2009. In short, the industry was spooked.

Instead, consumers would get a little more creative, make their costumes at home or — to corporate horror — wear what they bought last year.

In a CNNMoney article, NRF president Tracy Mullin tried to put a positive spin on the economic reality retailers are staring down each day.

"The economy has caught up to Halloween this year," Mullin said. "Since retailers know that Americans will be looking to celebrate on a budget, there's no doubt we will see creative costumes and decorating ideas in every price point possible."

It was the sort of spin quotation we've come to expect from corporate mouths, where "the economy" is used almost as a pronoun, or better still, a demonized boogeyman out to ruin our lives.

In the tricky world of business communications during a frightening recession, language is a double-edged sword. A spokesperson must create distance between the corporate roles that led to the recession, while also creating the sort of economic faith that will lead consumers to part with their cash.

As a rhetoric nerd, I find this communications strategy captivating, mostly because Americans don't much notice it. The boogey man is always an entity "out there," like "the economy," and golly, companies and consumers are its victims.

But you know, there are other views to consider. Maybe the recession is putting us in touch with a part of ourselves we forgot, and perhaps corporate America needs to think more about how to foster and support creativity in its various forms. There might not be as much profit in it as the inflated reports suggested just a few years ago, but it was profitable enough to build companies like JCPenney and Sears, Watkins and a host of others that have been in business for a hundred or so years.

Believe it or not, just 35 years ago, a store-bought costume was considered "the cheap way out." Children went door-to-door in costumes they or their parents had made. I know my own mother spent hours and hours bent over a sewing machine making the Raggedy Ann, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman costumes I wore as a child.

Fabric companies, particularly textile manufacturers in the U.S. that were devastated years later by globalization, made a decent profit. Sewing patterns, like those sold under brand names like Simplicity, Butterick and McCall's were a big deal.