8 Brands Delivering Marketing Tricks And Treats For Halloween

In one of our early podcast episodes discussing Halloween marketing, we agreed the great advantage of the scary season is that it gives brands a chance to have a little fun and try something different. It’s a weird holiday, so it’s the ideal time to go in some new directions and get a little wild.

While some Halloween marketing efforts seem a little weaker than others, there are still a healthy number of brands delivering some tricks and treats each year. Here are a handful of examples of monstrous marketing efforts.

Eight Delicious Pieces of Halloween Marketing

Here’s how some brands celebrate (and capitalize on) Halloween:

Commercials

Surprisingly for a candy brand, Skittles debuted their first-ever Halloween commercial this year. It came in a short 15-second version, and this twisty extended version:

Having some fun with their “It’s What You Do” message, Geico parodied the poor decisions people in horror movies make with this commercial:

Prank-vertising

To promote the upcoming movie “Ouija”, the marketers created this jump-scare video featuring a physic, an Ouija board and another shocking surprise:

With some elaborate masks and a car-related setting, Ford took some unsuspected test riders through a fright-filled car wash:

Social Media

Chupa Chups, a maker of lollipops, created an innovative choose-your-own-adventure game on Instagram taking users through a haunted house. Here’s a teaser video:

Target is also using Instagram in an interesting way with their Halloween marketing. The goal was to create a visual story around Halloween with a do-it-yourself theme (learn more about the campaign in this Ad Age article).

MONSTER Favorites

Last but not least, here are our two favorite pieces of Halloween marketing this year. Both do an incredible job playing off familiar horror-movie situations.

Snickers takes their “hungry” marketing and mixes it with demonic possession. 

This IKEA video harkens back to a horror classic while still showing off the brand. Honestly, this may be one of the best Halloween spots of all time: