The leaves are turning, the girlies are armed with pumpkin spice lattes, Caitlin Covington’s powers are defrosting with each fall day, and internet searches for pumpkin recipes have soared; spooky season is officially upon us.
Love it or hate it, Halloween is a time of the year when you can really have fun with your marketing and trick or treat your customers.
Whether you’re using this time to run a promotion or create a showstopping campaign, we’ve picked out some of our favourite Halloween campaigns from last year to give you some inspiration for your own marketing strategy.
Heinz - Toby the Vampire
Heinz is a household name for a reason. They consistently knock every campaign out of the park, no matter the occasion, and Halloween is no exception. Everyone has had the dreaded last-minute costume panic, and in that moment, there’s only one thing for it: the DIY ketchup job.
We’ve all reached for the bottle of tomato sauce in our time of need, and for the past few years, Heinz has taken the initiative to rebrand their most famous product, ‘tomato blood’, every October. However, this time, they added in a twist. Heinz unveiled the face of the campaign, ‘Toby the Vegetarian Vampire’ - an influencer who opts to eat Heinz's tomato blood and is on a mission to convert his other fellow vampires.
The results? Toby the Vampire caused a 12.5% increase in ketchup sales from the previous year! The campaign gained over 457 MILLION impressions and a 10% increase in the daily average follower growth. Overall, it was a huge success and something to take inspo from for your own campaigns.
Netflix and Chills
Capitalising on the ‘Netflix and chill’ trend, the streaming service introduced ‘Netflix and Chills’, which marketed their roster of scary movies for viewers to enjoy.
Netflix took the opportunity to promote some of the year’s most popular shows, from Wednesday to Stranger Things, as well as promoting cult classic horrors to get everyone in a spooky mood! The campaign proved to be a success, and no doubt we’ll see them bring it back for many years to come.
Skittles - Zombie Skittles
Last year, Skittles relaunched their Rotten Zombie campaign due to popular demand. Their ‘Rotten Roulette’ involved lacing packets of sweets with disgusting ‘rotten zombie flavour’ sweets. To promote the campaign, Skittles worked with influencers to encourage user-generated content and produced content with the hashtag #DareTheRainbow. Overall, it made for a simple but effective campaign!
Papa John’s - Stranger Bling Necklace
Papa John’s lifted everyone’s spirits with their “Stranger Bling” necklace campaign. Taking inspiration from their ever-so-slightly controversial garlic butter dip, they released a short film centred around a talisman infused with garlic to ward off any spooky ghouls.
The film proved to be a huge success, gaining attention across social media. Alongside this, a limited amount of necklaces were released online and available to buy at Black Feather Design for over £100 each, and some lucky pizza fans also had the opportunity to enter a competition to receive one for free!
UberEats - ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’
For Halloween, Uber Eats delivered a campaign like no other. Taking elements from classic horror films, the advert contained $1 million in candy promotional codes hiding within the ad. Using thrillers such as ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ and ‘Prey’ as the basis for the plot, and casting none other than Keke Palmer as the starring role, it couldn’t not be a success.
Hot Topic - Halloween in the Metaverse
Well-known retailer Hot Topic took Halloween to the Metaverse with a spooky-themed virtual clothing range. The clothing line called the ‘Halloween Forever Collection’ offered the chance for Roblox users to purchase clothing items in real life, as well as within the game. After launching, the collection reached over 1 million players and became a huge talking point by further expanding the fashion/ Metaverse relationship.
Chipotle - Boorito
Chipotle jumped into the Halloween fun by bringing back their ‘Boorito’ campaign after two successful years of running it virtually. The fast-food brand invited customers to dine in whilst wearing costumes on the 31st October to receive a burrito for just $6.
This led to thousands of people flocking to their local Chipotle wearing costumes, which made for some good UGC! Not only that, but customers could enter for the chance to win huge cash prizes for hashtagging their Instagram posts with #Booritosweepstakes.
The key takeaway from these Halloween campaigns is originality and thinking outside the box. Need a hand with a seasonal marketing campaign? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to see what we can do for your brand.
Our Paid Social, PPC, Copy, Design, and Email Marketing teams are on hand to help with everything from campaign strategy to marketing!
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