It might surprise you, but Halloween is the second most popular holiday in the US now, surpassed in popularity only by Christmas. Sales of costumes (both for humans and for pets), spooky decorations, and candies are through the roof on this creepy fest, so why shouldn’t your brand take advantage of it?
And, as you’re about to see, it isn’t only candies or Halloween decor that gets sold during this holiday – you can sell anything during this shopping frenzy if you play it smart. So, check out the examples of these five brands killing it on TikTok during the spookiest season of the year, and you might find the inspiration for launching your own marketing campaign attributed to Halloween, too.
HEINZ
Okay, so at first glance, ketchup and Halloween are miles apart, but where do you think the ‘blood’ stains on the kids’ costumes come from? Ketchup, naturally. Knowing this, HEINZ released a limited edition of this iconic condiment and called it the ‘Tomato Blood Ketchup.’ Which was, of course, the very same sauce, but in a different, more spooky package. To make it even more fun (or creepy), HEINZ also created a hashtag challenge designed exclusively for its TikTok audience.
So, HEINZ encouraged their audience to create Halloween-themed videos featuring a bottle of HEINZ ketchup using their #HeinzHalloween and #Sweepstakes hashtags to participate in a massive giveaway. To make it even spicier, HEINZ decided not to make their ‘Tomato Blood Ketchup’ widely available in stores, so creating a video for their challenge was virtually the only way for the fans to get a bottle of the spooky condiment. And it worked wonders for HEINZ in creating a huge amount of user-generated content and forming a tight bond with their TikTok audience.
A year later, the coveted ‘Tomato Blood Ketchup’ was widely available anywhere, which was also a well-thought-through point of their campaign. First, they’ve created hype around the product and rewarded their fans with it, and now they’ve made it available for everyone, allowing them to re-enact the fun they saw a year ago on TikTok.
Oh, and did we mention that this campaign garnered more than 5 billion views on TikTok?
Chipotle
Chipotle and their annual Boorito campaign isn’t something new, exactly, as it has been going strong for twenty-some years. During this campaign, the Mexican restaurant encourages its clients to wear a Halloween costume to their joints to win a free burrito or, if you may, a boorito. However, then came the pandemic, and Chipotle’s strategy had to change. Now, enter TikTok.
In collaboration with Addison Ray (@addisonre), Chipotle challenged TikTokers to record a video of themselves wearing a Halloween costume using the #boorito hashtag. Filming such a video granted discount codes and a chance to enter sweepstakes for a full year of free burritos.
What Chipotle also did was make sure that the user-generated content falls into its own aesthetics. So how did they do it? Well, they’ve stipulated that to be one of the winning videos, they must use the remix of ‘Monster Mash’ by Ethan Fields as their music and TikTok’s morph feature to illustrate the change into their Halloween persona. Which resulted in a staggering 4.2 billion views, discernable aesthetic, and good old Halloween fun.
Chupa Chups
These are the clear facts: trick-or-treating isn’t fun without candies. Who cares about apples and organic oat bars, anyway. And it’s also clear as day that no candy is as iconic as Chupa Chups. So, the brand decided to regain its stance as the must-have sweets for trick-or-treating by affiliating with Gen Z through its Halloween marketing.
But let’s go back in time a bit. Remember 2020 and the lockdowns? Sure you do; who would forget those dreadful times? Now, that might’ve meant massive business opportunity lost, but Chupa Chups took the reins into their own hands by releasing a fun social media marketing campaign directed at Halloween. They’ve launched a hashtag – #Chupalloween – on TikTok, encouraged their audience to dress up as Halloween characters, and provided fun filters, music, and branded stickers for the occasion.
#Chupalloween is one of those great examples illustrating the point that not all campaigns must be centered around giveaways. Most people just love creating content and being a part of a happening. And if done right, such campaigns work magic in raising brand awareness and creating loads of cool user-generated content.
ASOS
A year ago, fashion giant ASOS chose to use the then-testing feature called ‘Branded Mission’ as a part of their Halloween TikTok campaign. Here’s a reminder – the ‘Branded Mission’ is a way that brands can encourage more user-generated content in the form of submissions to their branded videos, and it worked like magic for ASOS’ #ASOSAlterEgo challenge.
The challenge itself proved to be ingenious in its simplicity as the brand asked the audience to create videos where they present their Halloween ‘alter ego,’ showing their transformation alongside the hashtag. To make it more fun, ASOS provided Halloween-themed music and a branded effect to create the most spooktacular videos.
Because the campaign used the ‘Branded Mission’ feature, TIkTokers could submit their videos to the brand itself. This gives the videos a free boost which, in turn, is favored by the platform’s algorithms. Meaning this way, a video had a better chance of becoming viral. So, this way, ASOS garnered loads of quality content and rewarded their audience with TikTok growth. A real win-win strategy!
NYX
Lastly, what’s a Halloween costume without theme-appropriate makeup? NYX Professional Makeup knows this well, and their Halloween TikTok marketing campaign a few years ago literally smashed it.
NYX kicked off their campaign by collaborating with SFX makeup artist Mimi Choi (@mimles) to create spooktacular beauty looks using the brand’s products and then asked TikTokers to take up the challenge themselves.
NYX’s idea was to encourage the audience to turn themselves into creepy dolls, and TikTokers delivered. From stunningly beautiful to downright scary, the looks were aplenty as the hashtag was used more than 650,000 times. And, for the time, NYX became the most viewed brand in the UK!
As you can see, Halloween presents a unique opportunity to drive sales or raise brand awareness for any business on any chosen platform. However, it seems that TikTok might just be the top choice for this occasion, as it is oriented toward self-expression and audiences’ creativity. This, in turn, clearly resonates with Gen Z, so if that’s your target audience, you should probably be aiming to release a TikTok Halloween marketing campaign this year.
And if you think that diving into TikTok on your own might be a little concerning, why not base your campaign on influencers? After all, they know how things work on this or any other platform, and you can rely on their expertise in conquering target audiences. Then, of course, to make said campaign even easier, you could give us a message, and we’ll sort it all out for you!
P.S.: While also cutting the costs and the time spent tremendously. And you could use that for creating your Halloween costume, right?
