How to Get Wild This Halloween? Every Big Brand Has Tricks Lined Up (For You)

Young people are getting better at catching up on these holidays, giving themselves a reason to relax. What brand would pass up a marketing chance like that?

Siri, whom the whole world now treats as an all-purpose answer book, has once again been fretting over what netizens should wear tomorrow night. Ask Siri what to wear for Halloween and you may get answers like these:

"Put a calendar on your head and go as an update."

"A hypothetical question posed by a human."

"Put on a surgical gown, grab some medical instruments, and tell everyone you're the operating system!"

Other answers: plankton, a spiral galaxy, a voice with no visible body — and, of course, the Siri brush-off: just be yourself, my little pumpkin.

Siri, a bit of a geek, is hardly the only brand with an elaborate pitch for this Western holiday. From candy makers to theme parks, brands have made their moves this year — much earlier than in years past. Young people everywhere are winning more of the attention of businesses: the National Retail Federation (NRF) projects that Halloween spending in the US this year will reach a record $8.4 billion.

The moment consumers start getting into the Halloween mood keeps moving earlier. By early September, malls across the US were already selling Halloween decorations. Brands are glad to see the mood thicken this early, not only because ads are relatively cheap in a slow month like September, but because a longer holiday reminds more people to spend.

Chinese consumers are giving Halloween more attention too. According to Baidu Index, searches for "Halloween" on Baidu rose 28-fold over the past 30 days, with frequency up 18% from a year earlier.

But most of us still have no idea how to throw a party, which makes the companies that supply the food, the drink, the venue and the ride more relevant. Budweiser, for one, set up "pop-up bars" in the commercial districts of 11 Chinese cities, inviting passersby in to drink a "blood-red brew" and let loose.

On October 24, four outdoor LED screens in Shanghai's Xujiahui district — at Pacific Department Store, Grand Gateway 66, Orient Shopping Center and Metro City — played Budweiser's Halloween ad on loop at the same time. The pop-up bar outside Grand Gateway drew several hundred people, and since this was a beer brand's event, the performances there qualified as "gory and terrifying." We drank the blood-red Budweiser so you don't have to: it is still bitter like beer, just thicker on the tongue — it really does feel a bit like drinking something with plasma stirred in.

Budweiser rolled out this Halloween campaign, the "immersive pop-up bar" included, across global markets at once. "China is one of the most important markets for this campaign, and this is also the first time Budweiser has run Halloween marketing in China," the company told QDaily. In China, the people who celebrate Halloween are mostly young people who follow fashion and trends, which is exactly Budweiser's target audience. So Budweiser decided to run Halloween marketing here, working in trendy, fashionable touches to draw them in.

Judging by how young people reacted on social media, the strategy worked. Of the 10 young people QDaily interviewed at random on site, four said they came to "check it out" after seeing friends post photos of the event on Weibo, Moments and other platforms. Lu Yi (a pseudonym), a college student, said marketing built around this Western holiday is rare, but "it makes you feel the brand is a bit special, a bit fashion." Shi Tiancheng, who studied in New Zealand, said: "There's no real Halloween celebration in China anyway — this Budweiser thing feels more like a show." In other words, a fresh excuse to have fun.

"Consumers now know how to catch up on these holidays, to give themselves a reason to relax. It's a happiness consumers are seeking on their own, and also a happiness businesses can supply — it matches what businesses need," Nie Yan, planning director for KFC at Yum China, told QDaily. KFC is the other international brand pushing Halloween hard in China this year, and it wants to supply the food for your party.

KFC went to Oriental DreamWorks and licensed Shrek (their second team-up, after the Kung Fu Panda "KFC Rice Bucket" in June), then launched a "Monstrous Blood Bag Drink" — a mixed fruit-and-vegetable juice — along with a Halloween bucket with Shrek on it. Given the need to stay family-friendly, Shrek was a safe pick.

KFC's 2016 Halloween ad, placed on both Moments and Bilibili

The fast-food business, which has had a rough couple of years, may be the crowd keenest on chasing holidays. McDonald's, which always likes to make something of its fries, put out purple taro-sauce "witch fries" in Japan this time; Mister Donut worked with Hello Kitty on a scary cat-face donut, also in Japan; Burger King sold red and black "Twin Terror Whoppers" over Halloween (in the US it did something more interesting, which we'll get to); and Pizza Hut, which belongs to Yum along with KFC, rolled out a whole slate at once — "Ghost Witch Finger" fries, a "Dark Magic Grilled Meat Pizza" (squid-ink powder mixed into the crust), an "Angel and Devil" cola ice cream, and blood-dripping bat wings (chicken wings with ketchup added).

Yum's third-quarter earnings report in early October named holiday marketing as important, saying Halloween and Christmas would be key moments for lifting results in the months ahead. Add Valentine's Day, Nie Yan said, and fast-food brands have at least three major Western holidays to work with in China.

And then there is Didi, which will get you to the party. Now that it has bought Uber China, this Halloween you may see only Didi's event: in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Foshan and Zhuhai, hail a ride successfully on the "Scream Halloween Car" channel and a black Audi decked out with ghosts and ghouls will carry you to one of Didi's partner malls, with a makeup artist on board to do your face on the way. Though it looks like nothing more than last year's Didi and Uber Halloween events, combined and upgraded.

The money going in is growing too. Budweiser moved from sponsoring music festivals to running its own pop-up bars. KFC went from handing out Doraemon Halloween toys last year to themed decorations plus a new menu at 5,000 stores nationwide this year, with online ad placements on top. Even Didi has lined up the malls and will walk you through how to enjoy yourself.

Still, next to global markets, Halloween marketing in China rarely produces an idea that stops you in your tracks. Brands stick to the most common moves — limited-time products, merchandise, themed events — which also has to do with advertisers keeping budgets conservative. Even for KFC, which ran a nationwide campaign this year, "the whole Halloween campaign isn't a big-budget one."

If you want to see Halloween marketing with some fun in it, Western markets play harder. Here are six of the most thoughtful global cases we've collected for you. You're welcome.

Airbnb: Spend a Night in Count Dracula's Castle

For Halloween, Airbnb listed a new property — Bran Castle in Romania, the inspiration for the castle where Count Dracula lived.

The overnight stay includes a velvet coffin bed for two, with Dacre Stoker — a descendant of Bram Stoker, who created the Dracula stories — as your guide, telling you the history of this 14th-century castle and the legends of the vampires.

To enter, you must submit a text of no more than 550 characters on the event page, on the theme: "What would you say to Count Dracula if you met him?"

"The scariest place in the world" is Airbnb's standard Halloween play every year. Last year it offered a night in a "mass grave": besides a bed ringed by skulls, the itinerary included a private concert in the catacombs, breakfast and dinner, round-trip flights to Paris, and a private tour from the catacombs' caretaker (of the ghost-story variety).

Burger King: Dressing Up as "McDonald's" to Scare You

A Burger King in Queens, New York may have locked up the title of best Halloween restaurant costume. It draped the whole restaurant in an enormous white sheet, as a ghost, with "I'M McDonald's" written across the cloth in jagged, clawing letters.

The idea came from Burger King's agency, David Miami. The costume was careful work: even the tall roadside sign that pulls customers in got a matching ghost one size down. But the Burger King logo showing through at the eyes still gave the real identity away.

The small ghost by the sign held up a whiteboard reading: "Booooooo! Just kidding, we still sell flame-grilled burgers. Happy Halloween." It pushed its own selling points — flame grilling and fresh meat — while taking a swipe at McDonald's fried frozen patties.

M&M's: A Pile of Horror Shorts Starring the Chocolate Candies

A "Trick or Treat" holiday would be incomplete without the candy brands.

M&M's, which loves a gag, put out a glow-in-the-dark special edition in the US. Five designs each star one of the main characters, and with the lights off you see only the candies' eyes and the huge M on their bodies. It is a simple glow effect, but M&M's may be the most fun Halloween packaging anyone has seen so far this year.

Globally, it also released short films paying tribute to horror movies including Hannibal and Saw (a few of which aren't scary at all), all starring the chocolate candies, in several language versions.

One short pays tribute to the murder of the heroine in Hitchcock's Psycho. A chocolate candy is in the shower, covered in suds, when the music turns sinister and a shadow that looks like an arm raising a knife appears outside the curtain. The candy panics, yanks the curtain open — and finds another chocolate candy playing the violin.

The glow-in-the-dark edition is sold only at Walgreens, the largest drugstore chain in the US.

Pokémon: Ghost-Type Encounter Rates Up!

Candy brands aren't the only ones handing out treats. So is Pokémon Go.

From October 26 to November 1, the game raised the appearance rate of seven Pokémon: Zubat, Golbat, Gastly, Haunter, Gengar, Drowzee and Hypno. The hidden bonus: the rates for Cubone, Marowak and Meowth also went up sharply.

Candy rewards are doubled and doubled again during this stretch, making those rare Pokémon easier to get.

Pokémon Go, a worldwide craze, passed 100 million downloads back in August. But according to Apptopia, after peaking at nearly 45 million daily active users in the summer, that number fell fast and kept falling, dropping more than 30% in a single month. There are many reasons: winter is coming and going out to adventure gets hard, and for some players the Pokémon still missing from the Pokédex never turn up, which wears thin.

Choosing Halloween for its first big in-game event also carries an intent to win the market back — Americans and Japanese both love the holiday.

Gucci Ghost: A Softer, Cuter Gucci

Since Alessandro Michele took over as Gucci's creative director in a crisis at the start of last year, the house's aloof style has turned playful, retro and impish.

"Gucci Ghost" began as a whim of the New York hip-hop artist Trouble Andrew on Halloween three years ago: he cut two holes in a Gucci bedsheet, threw it over himself and went out as a ghost. Friends called him "GucciGhost," and it caught fire on social media.

Trouble Andrew got hooked on making mischievous designs out of the Gucci logo and pasted his work up all over. Alessandro Michele found out and held out an olive branch — and that is how the official Gucci Ghost came about.

The celebration of this year's launch actually started around New York Fashion Week in mid-September, when the entire exterior of the Fifth Avenue flagship was covered in Gucci Ghost designs.

By this Halloween, the same decorations went up at the flagship in Chengdu's Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li to mark the line's official arrival in China. The Chengdu event runs four weeks and includes a specially designed ghost-themed display and a match-three game.

Svedka Vodka: The Scariest Thing in the World Is Being Ignored

Svedka is a Swedish vodka brand popular in the US. But the young drinkers it has always aimed at drink less vodka now, so sales have slipped in recent years, and it has been trying to win them back with vodka cocktail recipes.

This Halloween it went after millennials again with a series of shorts called "The Scariest Thing in the World". The opening shots and voiceover sound exactly like a horror film, but the joke is on millennial social habits.

In the first, the scariest thing in the world is "posting a selfie and getting only four likes in three hours."

Svedka "The Scariest Thing in the World" ad — Likes

In the second, a guy's friend asks him: "Did she text you back?" After an awkward silence, he answers: "No."

Svedka "The Scariest Thing in the World" ad — Texts

In the third, someone complains to a friend, "Storage is full, I can't take any more photos!" The friend says: "You might have to delete some photos." How terrifying.

Svedka "The Scariest Thing in the World" ad — Storage

In every short, inside the scene and again at the end, Svedka recommends a different vodka cocktail recipe.

Cover image from plusquotes

Banner image from pinterest

All videos in this article are from YouTube