9 Great Examples of Halloween Holiday Campaigns

Get your spook on! The season of thrills and chills is here. It’s the perfect time for you to get creative and use spine-chilling concepts to come up with scary and engaging Halloween marketing campaigns.

Get inspired to create astonishing Halloween advertising campaigns. Here are 10 Halloween marketing examples that will inspire you in your own campaigns:

1. Creepy Coasters

Back in 2009, Guinness came out with spooky shadow coasters served with your pint of Guinness beer on Halloween night. The idea was to produce coasters representing the shadows of the Guinness glasses. This easy but low-cost Halloween campaign featured some of the most popular Halloween icons, namely ghosts, vampires, and devils. Sales boomed that Halloween night as people ordered glasses of Guinness beer to get their own scary shadow coasters.

2. Trick and Treat

Rice Krispies took “Trick or Treating to another level in their 2013 Halloween marketing campaign. They created Halloween-themed vending machines advertising “Free Rice Krispies Scares Here”. The company even placed a sign with the word “Free” and the hashtag #ScaresVendor for emphasis. 

Customers think that the machines are safe enough until they reach for their free treat in the pickup box. A person inside the machine then reaches out and grabs their hand. Customers are sure to remember the trick Rice Krispies pulled on them. 

3. Skulls Away

Harley-Davidson kept things simple by creating a beautiful poster showing a skull made from every part of its iconic Sportster Forty-Eight Bike. 

While this ad isn’t as flashy as other Halloween marketing posters, it displays pride in the Harley-Davidson brand and its products while still keeping in line with the Halloween theme.

4. Spookermarket Surprise

Customers had no idea of the surprises Tesco had in store for them in their 2018 Halloween advertising campaign. The supermarket chain turned two out of its seven thousand branches into a “spookermarket” for Halloween. They hid several scares all around the store, including shopping carts moving on their own, disembodied heads behind toilet papers, and more. 

One of the great things about this Halloween campaign is how unpredictable it is. With only two of their branches geared for spooks, customers won’t know when the scares are coming until it hits them.

5. Fanta’s Frightening Fantasy

One of the biggest 2017 Halloween campaigns came from Fanta soda. They created a 360-degree VR experience where you ride a virtual elevator to the 13th floor. The ride is full of spooks and surprises, ranging from dolls, puppets, and strange creatures. 

They supplemented this Halloween campaign by creating limited edition Halloween cans of Fanta multipack drinks. The packaging included special QR codes which gave access to spooky branded Snapchat filters.

Fanta’s Halloween campaigns are a great example of the application of two kinds of media to create a horrific Halloween experience. It is the perfect example of combining print and tech, it could not be more spooktacular. 

6. Intimidating Implications

At first glance, the McDonald’s Halloween poster displays just an ordinary cheeseburger. However, the careful arrangement of the burger components gives a subtle nod to its true Vampire soul.

These kinds of Halloween campaigns show you don’t need fancy graphics to advertise your brand’s products during the holidays. Sometimes all you need is a great idea and perfect execution.

7. Ghoulish Grub

Pizza Hut’s Halloween marketing poster may look like just an ordinary picture of stretched mozzarella. Taking a closer look, however, gives us a cheesy ghoulish silhouette. 

Despite the scary composition of the stretched melted cheese, it still makes viewers hungry for pizza. It just goes to show that well-executed ideas, no matter how simple, can still produce a strong impact.

8. For the Fans

Marmite released two new limited-edition collectable Halloween jars available only for a few weeks in October 2018. It came in two versions: Trick to “petrify a Marmite hater” and Treat to “spoil a Marmite lover”. For that extra personal touch, Marmite offered personalisation services where you can put your name on the label.

Marmite fans are sure to purchase these personalised, limited-edition jars. They can give it as an early Christmas gift to another Marmite lover, or keep it as their own. Fans won’t be able to resist sharing their own personalised Marmite jars on social media as well. It’s an omnichannel brilliant campaign. 

9. Eerie but Effective

Photo: Snickers Halloween 1, Snickers Halloween 2, Snickers Halloween 3

Snickers released a series of posters for their 2007 Halloween advertising campaign. Their posters feature different homeowners on Halloween night opening their door a trick-or-treater that looks exactly like them, but smaller.

The tagline for these posters read, “It’s what you would want.”

Though somewhat eerie, these posters are witty and hilarious. They appeal to Snickers’ fan to support the brand by giving away their candy for Halloween because they know how much their fans love their sweet treats.

Halloween is the best time to show off your scares and flares in your marketing campaigns. Go out and create your own Halloween campaigns right now!