Three of This Year's Most Spectacular and Spooky Marketing Creations
Halloween: a-one-of-a-kind holiday where people can become anyone or anything. It is also a great time for companies to let their marketing and creativity shine through, using Halloween to their advantage. I am going to share with you three of the most spectacular and spooky marketing creations of this Halloween. Get ready to be spooked and startled by Starbucks, Fanta and Lush’s takes on Halloween marketing!
It Tastes Better Than It Sounds
If you are not a coffee lover, then who are you and how can I stop drinking four cups of coffee before lunch? I’m kidding, but even if you are not a coffee lover, you still can’t help but appreciate Starbucks annual coffee creations. This PR-move has since made Starbucks one of Halloween’s most anticipated and seasonal brands since its first coffee creation in 2014. This 2018 Halloween-themed drink, called Witch’s Brew Frappuccino, is enchanting many coffee fanatics! We’re told that it’s a “purple blend of toad’s breath with a swirl of bat warts and a dusting of green lizard scale powder.” Let me just clear things up by saying that it is actually a purple-colored drink that tastes like orange crème, which definitely sounds more appealing.
According to USA Today Money, a member of the Starbucks’ beverage development team, Jennica Robinson said that they wanted to make a flavor that people could enjoy at a Halloween party. It’s the perfect way to get people excited about “this year’s flavor” and create that fun, festive atmosphere for everyone. Not to mention, what’s more Instagram worthy that a purple and green drink from Starbucks? From a PR standpoint, this provides consumers a great opportunity to share the brand over social media, but with a creative and spooky twist.
Frightening Fanta
Moving on to our second spooky marketing creation of this year, Fanta has really outdone themselves with their biggest Halloween campaign ever. Their campaign features two new flavors, new can designs, Snapchat filters, and an event called Twisted Carnival to top it all off.
They have gone above and beyond with connecting with their audience and gaining new consumers
by letting them choose between two new limited flavors. This tactic was very clever, as they noticed “four popular online influencers to represent a new flavor and encourage consumers to vote for their favorite via online prank videos that gained 18.7 million views,” Coca-Cola Journey stated the two chosen flavors were Blood Orange and Pink Grapefruit.
They also featured four newly designed cans that gave a playful personality to each flavor. These included Dracula, a skeleton, a witch, and a one-eyed vampire. If you bought Fanta’s new creation, you were also given a QR code that gives you access to all of the exclusive snapchat filters and lens–How cool is that? Lastly, this campaign promised to take people on a freaky journey to the Twisted Carnival. Fanta teamed up with Merlin Entertainment as they went to different locations such as Thorpe Park, Westfield London, Birmingham Bullring and Liverpool One. Let us give a round of applause to Fanta for their brilliant campaign execution.
Spookiest Suds
So many of these amazing marketing creations have to do with food and beverages. Although we live for these Halloween-themed mater pieces, I want to highlight a company that is not that category, but still used seasonal branding to their advantage. Lush Cosmetics, well-known in the beauty cosmetics
industry, went all out for Halloween. They created things like the Eyeball Bath Bomb, an Ectoplasm Jelly Bomb and so much more. This again is such a visually appealing product line that was shared across different platforms that allowed consumers to get a look at it being used. Especially if the big beauty influencers get ahold of these products, YouTube and Instagram is a useful tool to showcase those products.
Lush also revamped their website (no pun intended). It made the shopping experience much more captivating and fun for consumers to use. Lush put a bright green photo on the front page, which grabs your attention quickly. They also turned the cursor into a little ghost that moves around as you navigate the site. This type of implementation into your seasonal branding is such a smart business move that can create a new exciting feel for your customers.
These companies created the most unique and well-executed seasonal products and put together campaigns to really catch the attention of the public. This time of the year is the best time for brands and companies to be creative and get people excited about them. I am not sure about you, but I think I might grab my Witch’s Brew Frapp, slide into the tub full of Ectoplasm Jelly and capture the moment with my spooky Fanta Snapchat filters.
Want to hear more from Sierra? Follow her on Twitter: @heilman_sierra