Using Old Tricks For Treats
Seasonal holidays are always a frenzy of brands vying for their piece of the pie. Every second agency and brand looks at the calendar year and notes the “key dates” where they can change up their creative suite and messaging to match the growing consumerism, like some badly blended Hallmark soup full of garish colours and cringeworthy buzzwords. So why should you bother with Halloween?
(NB: It’s not lost on us that we’ve totally reskinned our Hivemind mail and fall into this category, but we’re basic and not trying to hide it today)
In a sense, Halloween is no different to most of them; it’s cobwebs and fake blood instead of love-hearts and chocolates. Cauldrons and ghosts instead of shamrocks and spilling taco fries down your shirt. But the power of seasonal holidays can’t be ignored. Last year over £419 million was spent in Britain alone on Halloween themed goods. I’m no economist but I’m pretty sure that’s enough monkey nuts to cover the surface of Kanye West’s humungous ego or his wife Kim’s… eh… also her ego.
Money will be spent, so unfortunate as it may seem, there’s a good chance you’ll have to throw on your best steak speedos and jump into the consumer piranha pool (weird analogy I know, I apologise, but we’re talking about Halloween here so let’s roll with it!). Halloween could barely be more consumer-focused – kids dressing up and trick or treating, adults dressing down and making shows of themselves, houses and shops putting on a face full of scary make-up – everywhere you look money, goods and services are being eaten up. So how do you stand out in the zombie horde?
Find your differentiator:
You have a unique brand story, tell it again as you would at any other time of the year but maybe through a more ghoulish lens. Maybe you’re a historically family owned and run business that spanned generations? This gives you credibility to tell old ghost stories. If your product has a role in Halloween parties, shout scream about it. Yes, it’s the same marketing battle as the other 364 days in the year but this has a richer storytelling base than the majority of them. Use it.
Burger King is great at provoking its yellow-arched nemesis. Rather than focus on their own story, it used its competitor’s brand character to create this good one.
Segment your audience into micro groups:
Halloween means many different things to everyone. It has a huge kid’s audience, which you would target through parents obviously reeling them in through pester-power. But even in parent groups there are further breakdowns through early adopters, entertainers, economic brackets. Note that schools are on holiday so parents are reaching deeper to keep the little ones happy. Your young professionals will be a mix of the out-on-the-town gang, or going to friend’s parties, or simply staying on the couch with a scary movie. The bank holiday is a factor for them too. The circumstance you can your audience will be different to other times in the year.
Source: Instagram @nph - https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba5f_tlBWHR/
Make the effort:
If you are gonna dress up for the party, do it properly. Ever been to a fancy-dress party and seen the too-cool-for-school guy who just bought a cheap mask and wore his normal clothes. Is he impressing anyone? Quite the contrary. When you half-ass things you’re not giving your audience the respect they deserve, the same audience you’re asking pay you attention or spend their money on your product/service. Put the time in, get into the spirit of things, wear the costume, or don’t show up.
Skittles has always been a “Halloween brand” but this ad campaign showed it was willing to go all-in on the scare creative instead of the obvious kitsch routes it could have easily taken.