Father’s Day Spending Expected to Hit New High

June 17, 2016

This article is included in these additional categories:

Email | Food & Restaurants | Men | Paid Search | Retail & E-Commerce | Spending & Spenders

NRF-Fathers-Day-Spending-Forecast-June2016More than 3 in 4 US adults plan to celebrate Father’s Day this year, with celebrants expecting to each spend roughly $126 on gifts, according to a recent NRF survey. That per-celebrant average is the highest in the survey’s history, as is the total expected outlay of $14.3 billion, which is up by almost 8% from the previous high of $13.3 billion in 2013.

That’s still well below the $21.4 billion that the NRF expected would be spent on Mother’s Day, however.

In fact, Mother’s Day is about twice as popular as Father’s Day in paid search, according to an AdGooroo study. And likewise, Marin Software argues that “advertisers should pay more attention to Father’s Day,” in noting that retailers last year increased their ad spend in the week leading up to Mother’s Day to a greater extent than they did in the week leading to Father’s Day.

Indeed, two-thirds of the more than 1,100 “Social Dads” surveyed by Social Media Link from its Smiley360 consumer influencer community agree that Fathers’ Day does not receive as much media attention as Mother’s Day. These fathers want family time (82%), homemade gifts (69%) and electronics (61%) the most, per the survey’s results. (More about social dads here.)

Meanwhile, Brand Keys also expects a robust Father’s Day this year, with spending up 6% to $18.8 billion as 78% of adults celebrate. Gift cards and clothing are the most popular gifts planned by respondents to the survey.

The most common gifts planned by respondents to the NRF survey are greeting cards (64.5%), special outings such as dinner or brunch (47.1%), and clothing (43.2%). Factoring in expected spending on those items, though, and the greatest amount ($3.1 billion) will be spent on special outings.

Fathers also appreciate experiences, per results from an ICSC survey. As such, a slim majority (52%) of shoppers will spend on experiences including full service restaurants (44%), movies, plays, concerts or sporting events (20%), other food services (18%) and experiential events such as golf outings and car simulations (13%).

In terms of shopping destinations, the ICSC survey indicates that physical stores will get the nod over e-commerce. That’s backed up by the NRF research, which finds that the largest share (38.2%) of respondents will be shopping at department stores for their gifts, although close to one-third will shop online. Brand Keys also expects department stores to be the top shopping destination, though it finds discount stores (36%) to be slightly more popular than online (34%).

Finally, data from Yesmail indicates that while Father’s Day-themed emails have lower open and click rates than general emails (those not referencing fathers or the day in the subject line), the emails related to the day had much higher conversion rates. Yesmail analyzed more than 128,000 emails sent in the 2 weeks leading up to Father’s Day in 2014 and 2015 to arrive at its conclusions, also noting that the number of conversions from Father’s Day more than doubled between 2014 and 2015 leading to a sizable revenue increase.

About the Data: The NRF results are based on a survey conducted 5/2-5/10/2016 among 7,200 adults.

The Brand Keys data is from a survey conducted among 5,800 adults aged 18-65.

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