The advertising world leaves no holiday unturned. And while the heartstring-tugging of the Christmas season is not far off, let us first bask in the spooky jack-o’-lantern glow of Halloween.
Halloween ranks as the fourth most popular holiday for consumer spending, lagging only behind the mighty trio of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. In fact, this year American consumers will spend nearly $10 billion on Halloween costumes, candy, cards and the like.
In that spirit–to celebrate the flood of marketing and advertising that accompanies the most spooky of all holidays–we present a few terrific examples of brands doing Halloween the right way.
Budweiser’s excellent new #DrinkWiser campaign includes a cautionary tale for Halloween revelers best summed up in one phrase: “Don’t let Halloween haunt you forever.” Budweiser VP-Marketing (and Brand Innovators community member) Monica Rustgi explained the campaign: “Halloween is a chance to escape reality by dressing up in costume for the night. The untold story however is that this escapism can go too far when people forget to drink responsibly.”
We also loved this new spot from Burger King. (Shout-out to BK CMO Fernando Machado, a Brand Innovators fixture.) Remember the green bun from last year? Well, they’re back with a “spirit taste test” in which medium Riz Mizra channels the dead so they can taste the new limited-edition Ghost Whopper. The facial expressions from the innocent bystanders here are what makes it great.
Halloween may make you think of gory makeup but it doesn’t so much call to mind traditional cosmetics. So props to Lush Cosmetics for really getting in the spirit with a limited-edition Halloween product offering. They had us at “shower slime” but it was the “Monsters’ Ball Bath Bomb” (see below) that really caught our eye.
For its first Halloween-themed ad in five years, Skittles features a hilariously irritable witch filled with regret about her choice of soup ingredients. Great stuff.
In closing, since you were foooooolish enough to read this far, we will now reward you with this remarkable supercut of spooky 1970s and ’80s Halloween ad spots. You’re welcome!
