With Halloween just a few days away, now is the time to think of a marketing gimmick that works with the occasion.
While many marketers shy away from the dark and scary theme of Halloween because it doesn’t attract customer’s “buying mood”, there are many ways to use this scary festivity to your advantage.
How to use Halloween to your advantage
1. Know The Essence Of Halloween
The first thing you’re going to need in order to use Halloween to your advantage is knowing the purpose behind the festivity. According to History.com:
Halloween has its roots in the ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, which was celebrated on the night of October 31. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, believed that the dead returned to earth on Samhain. People would gather to light bonfires, offer sacrifices and pay homage to the deceased
By knowing the purpose of the celebration, you can easily craft a marketing creative that embodies this idea. This helps build an authenticity and “human” persona for your brand that can help attract attention.
2. Create a Good Ad Creative
Once you have a grasp of the essence of the festival (in this case, Halloween) next thing you need to think of is a good and attractive Ad creative. When thinking of an ad creative, you need to make sure that it can bring the essence of the festival to life, even if it’s celebrating the dead.
Some fun Ad creatives you can use are:
Interactive ads – since Halloween is scary, you’ll need to think of a way to scare your audience. That’s why interactive ads work well for a Halloween-themed ad. Not convinced? A few Halloweens ago, Doritos launched an interactive ad int he form of a browser-based game called “hotel626”.
The game is pretty much like an escape room game where you need to get out of a haunted hotel. The marketing was a complete success, with Doritos claiming the sold “5 million bags of Doritos, ‘without showing a single corn chip.’”
Story-driven ads – Another good ad creative to showcase on Halloween are story driven ads. Since there are many horror stories that pop up during the Halloween festivities, creating an ad creative that has a clear and scary narrative could be your key to a resounding ad.
Narrative-based ads are great tools to connect your brand with viewers since it tells a story and can pique interest than traditional commercial-type ads. It also ads a fresh look to your brand that can generate brand recall.
Ads with jumpscares – Jumpscares are a pop-culture element during Halloween, and a good marketing strategy to get your viewer’s attention.
Ads with jumpscares are similar to interactive ads since it interacts with viewers, however, these are less expensive and much easier to do. All you need to do is put a well-positioned jumpscare somewhere in your ad. It has to be unsuspecting and light enough for a good scare.
Distribute the ad in the proper platform
Once your ad creative is done, it’s time to distribute it to your audience. But in order for an ad creative to be effective, it has to be delivered in the proper platform.
Most interactive ads work well in the online platform since people online prefer to be involved in the entertainment they consume. This has become especially true when virtual reality became easily accessible. For story-driven ads and ads with jumpscare, it works well with TV commercials and online video sharing platforms like Youtube. So they’re much more versatile than Interactive ads.
Throw In The Scare!
Festivals are a great way to connect to your audiences as a brand. It shows the human side of your brand and makes your brand much more relatable to consumers. And if you craft a compelling ad creative, you’ll be able to generate a good brand recall among your viewers.
Creating a good and powerful Ad creative is not a walk in the part. It requires understanding and clear Optimization to get to the right viewers. That’s why hiring a competent SEO team can help you get your brand in front of viewers hassle-free.
