According to the National Retail Federation, the US spent $9 billion for Halloween last year. This is the second highest total spending during Halloween in the last 14 years of survey data. Halloween continues to be big business, becoming a growing trend in the UK and other regions.
Brands spend millions on Halloween campaigns, hoping to engage their audience and cash in on this lucrative time of the year. Halloween gives you complete creative license to express your brands personality and have a lot of fun, so if you’re looking for some spooky inspiration, we’ve put together our top 5 terrifyingly successful marketing campaigns.
- Topshop Stranger Things Experience
Oxford Circus’ Topshop in London teamed up with Netflix to give shoppers a true Hawkins experience to celebrate the release of season 2 of the hit show. Topshop transformed their store into key scenes from the series for customers to explore alongside selling Stranger Things merchandise. This was a very smart move from Topshop, benefitting from both their own audience as well as Stranger Things fans, creating engagement across social media with people documenting their experience, even leaving people queuing to enter the store!
2. Fanta Snapchat Filters
Another successful collaboration took place between Fanta and Snapchat. Integrating the physical world of consumer goods with a social media giant allowed them both to benefit during the Halloween season. Fanta released limited edition cans for Halloween featuring QR codes which when scanned gave consumers exclusive spooky Snapchat filters. This campaign was launched alongside the release of new limited edition flavours, creating some clever marketing and reports of a 23% growth in the company!
3. M&M’s Millie and Max Interactive Ghost Story
Also tapping into the resource of social media was confectionery brand, M&Ms. They kept their audience engaged over the Halloween season through a series of interactive videos, where the story of Millie and Max’s adventure unravelled, giving the audience the chance to vote throughout on what should happen next.
4. Ford “Spooky Car Wash Prank”
Ford decided to take a different route and play a prank on their customers. In 2014, Ford asked unsuspecting victims to stop for a car wash on the way to a filmed test drive. During the car wash actors terrorised the prank victims, with a zombie-style invasion and horror effects.
5. Dunkin’ Donuts Costume Competition
Taking advantage of the traditions of Halloween, Dunkin’ Donuts launched a competition for their customers to dress up in Dunkin’ inspired costumes for Halloween. This created some amazing user-generated content, with entries flooding in with the chance to win $1000 and a year’s supply of coffee from the chain, as well as providing customers with a great Halloween costume idea!
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