The Funnel and How HHN is Missing Out on Creating More Superfans

Sometimes when I participate on HHN fan forums and chat rooms, I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day. It seems like we have the same conversation over and over and over. Someone will say "I don't understand why they don't bring back the icons for marketing" to which someone will reply: "because normal people care more about seeing Michael Myers than Eastern European Sadistic Director Trope". I'm not here to argue that main point because it's totally correct. Normal people care so much more about IPs and the chance to walk through their favorite movies and encounter those famous monsters and settings than they do about something that may mean a lot to you and me but ultimately is usually a trope-y character.

But, although that concept is undoubtedly true, I think it misses a larger point that might not support the original person's words directly but it does support their larger point.

To explain that, let's consider a funnel. (Yes, if anyone knows this business concept, this is basically a sales funnel. I'm no businessman so maybe I'm totally getting it wrong in which case, it's my own thing, leave me alone!) Fair warning: I'm going to play fast and loose with made up groups here. You might disagree with my groupings and that's okay!

Just outside of the mouth of the funnel is the full list of every single person that might possibly be interested in attending an HHN-like event. There are always going to be some people that just aren't interested in attending the event as it roughly exists now. Maybe they would if it wasn't scary but in this case we're going to assume that the event is what it is: a scary Halloween event with multiple houses and scarezones with actors jumping at you and violating your personal space in the context of horror or horror adjacent IPs or original ideas. Some people just aren't interested in that and that's okay. Nothing we can do about them.

Just inside the very mouth of the funnel, we have the most casual of attendees. These attendees will attend one night maybe two over the course of the event. They'll generally come in a small group, they'll buy single day tickets, they'll show up an hour or two after opening, they'll do a few houses, maybe see a show, buy a meal and/or a drink and then take off. They enjoy the event while they're there but it really doesn't occupy any of their thinking in the offseason until Halloween time-ish rolls around.

And so on and so forth. The next level maybe has a weekend trip with an Express or RIP purchase and staying on site. The next level is a RoF or FF purchase with a lot more nights and souvenirs and maybe an UTH. Until it gets to people like me or probably you if you're reading an HHN blog in January! People like you and I are very valuable to Universal both in money and in word of mouth. We're telling our friends and family about the event. We'll visit the parks esepcially to see construction. Like and comment on vloggers and tell the algorithm to spread their videos/photos more. And oh man, are we more lucrative. Let's take me as an example (not meant as a brag, promise). In Orlando alone, I bought a private RIP tour, both UTHs, RoF with Express, tons of food and drink, lots of souvenirs (although not a ton this year as I usually do) and a week and a half stay onsite. That's close to 5 figures! Then I did a long weekend in Hollywood with an RIP tour, stay onsite (I know that the Hilton isn't a Universal owned hotel), food and drinks and souvenirs and 2 days of tickets and unlimited Express. Then Singapore where I did a weekend with 2 RIP tours, a night with multiple single use Express passes, food and drink and an onsite stay. Japan had 4 nights at the event, food and drink, Express and onsite hotels. Now yes, all of that money isn't necessarily making it to Universal itself but a lot of it is. You might not spend as much as me but total it up. I bet you spent in the thousands for your visit too.

You and I as superfans are valuable. On a per-cap basis, we probably spend 5 or 10x as much as the people at the top of the funnel. Universal wants us and wants to create more of us.

And that brings me back to my main point where I think Universal is dropping the ball. IP focused marketing is more effective in drawing people from outside the funnel into the funnel. I understand that that is ultimately the most important thing so you're not going to see me arguing about getting rid of it for mass market focused media. But I think Universal doesn't focus enough on how to get people down the funnel and how to convert them from the one or two nights a year-ers to the diehards like you or I.

And here's where others may disagree but I think the thing that drew me and a lot of others in is the lore and the familiar characters of the icons and icon adjacent characters. We care about these characters and we love to see them. I think Universal should make much heavier use of them and specifically expand the lore a lot more. They should spend much more time on them when they're making marketing that talks to us as fans. I believe that seeing these characters more and having more exposure will have more people at the top of the funnel be curious about them and look into the lore and engage more with those of us that are already superfans (become "infected" if you will). That pulls them down the funnel to caring more and spending more money.

And I don't think it has any downside. Let's look at 2023 which had the strong prescence of Dr Oddfellow. Yes, the majority of people at the event saw him as "the scary ringmaster" and never cared enough to look further but my hypothesis is that a higher fraction of people started caring more about the event and going down the rabbit hole with Oddfellow than they did in 2022, especially with the Oddfellow tie in in Jungle of Doom, the scare zone at the front of the park and the Oddfellow house. But let's assume that I'm totally wrong and that it did not get people any more interested. I still think it has no downsides. For example, is someone outside the mouth of the funnel less likely to go when they see or hear about the "Dr Oddfellow's Twisted Origins" haunted house featuring a ringmaster in a top hat? I'd argue that they are no less likely to go vs a generic clown haunted house. So if it doesn't hurt conversion into the top of the funnel, why wouldn't you take a risk of trying to widen the bottom of your funnel?

With that in mind, I think it's wise to see the Icons a lot more used than they are right now. That doesn't mean every original house every year has to have an icons tie in but it does mean that most years have some sort of icon representation, whether that's an overarching event icon like Oddfellow or a house for the Director or Caretaker or... There's a lot of ground between only being seen on anniversary years and dominating the original portion of the event. Let's expose new fans to these characters and see if we can drive them down the funnel!

I think a common rebuttal to this idea is the idea that "if you have Icons every year, it won't be as special for anniversary years". That's true to a degree but I think it's possible to balance these concerns. Anniversary years can still focus to a greater degree on the Icons. They can have them more featured on merch and they can tell crossover stories the way they did in Icons 2021 (kinda). And ultimately, I think it goes back to the common comeback on forums: "you and I are going to go anyways". We're crazy fans, we're going to go anyways even if the event every 5 years is marginally less special, so why does Universal care if they're also getting us more engaged during non-anniversary years?

I believe that the Icons and the shared lore behind them is the part that makes HHN standout from other Halloween events and I believe that more exposure to it on the part of new fans can suck them deeper into the fandom, ultimately having them spend more money and spread the event more. I don't see a ton of downside to doing so given that normal attendees won't care about "Paolo Ravinsky presents Slaughter Sinema" vs "Slaughter Sinema". It'll be "scary horror movie house" in either cases to those people. So let's see it Universal! Let's see more of those characters we love so much!