7 Awesome Halloween Brand Storytelling Campaigns of 2024
As Halloween swept across 2024 with all its eerie excitement, several brands mixed tricks, treats, and a pinch of fright to captivate consumers, showing us that there’s real magic in storytelling. Here’s a look at seven Halloween campaigns of 2024 that caught my eye and the clever takeaways you can use to craft your own bewitching brand stories.
1. Ring and M&M’s: Activate Halloween Mode with Quick Replies
Campaign Overview: This Halloween, Ring collaborated with M&M’s to bring festive fun right to people’s front doors. By activating “Halloween Mode” on their Ring Video Doorbells, users could let Red, M&M’s beloved mascot, welcome visitors with a range of playful Quick Replies. Responses ranged from encouraging visitors to “make them dance for their treats” to subtly spooky messages, creating a lighthearted Halloween experience. This creative use of technology saw users sharing reactions on Instagram and TikTok, showcasing how Red’s mischievous hospitality added an extra layer of fun to Halloween.
Why It Works: The campaign brilliantly merges interactive tech with a familiar mascot, making a typical doorbell experience unforgettable. By encouraging people to share their interactions on social media, Ring and M&M’s amplified brand reach. The collaboration led to a surge in user-generated content, with projected impressions surpassing 10 million. This success was further fueled by influencer partnerships and in-store activations featuring Red, driving brand engagement across digital and physical spaces.
Takeaway: Leveraging technology to create an interactive experience can transform everyday moments into engaging brand storytelling. The playful use of Quick Replies turns a simple doorbell into a seasonal storytelling tool, deepening consumer connections in a playful way.
2. Dunkin’s Spider Donut: How One Photo Spun a Web of Social Success
Campaign Overview: Dunkin’ turned a single product shot of its seasonal Spider Donut into an entire character-driven campaign for Halloween. Instead of merely sharing product photos, Dunkin’ gave the donut a personality, “Spidey D,” who interacted with followers in a hilarious, unhinged tone. Daily posts featuring Spidey’s “antics” kept followers engaged, with each update building on the last to create a lighthearted narrative. The campaign ended with a parody “firing” of Spidey D after he “leaked” Dunkin’s holiday menu, transitioning seamlessly into the next season.
Why It Works: This campaign transformed a simple donut using the unhinged marketing trend into a character fans could relate to, showing how Dunkin’ can maximize creativity with minimal resources. By giving Spidey D a voice and storyline, Dunkin’ made the Spider Donut memorable while entertaining followers, proving that storytelling doesn’t always require big budgets or complex assets.
Takeaway: Craft a unique character with a personality or a compelling backstory for your products. Pair it with simple imagery and text and it can evolve into a full narrative that delights audiences and keeps them returning for more.
3. Discover Ireland: Celebrate Halloween’s Ancient Roots with the Home of Halloween
Campaign Overview: Did you know that Ireland is the home of Halloween? Neither did I. Discover Ireland leveraged the holiday to raise awareness for the origins of Halloween, tracing it back to Ireland’s ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The campaign invited audiences to explore Halloween’s historic roots by visiting Ireland’s spooky sites, such as the Hill of Ward, where Samhain rituals began.
Why It Works: This campaign’s cultural storytelling enriched the Halloween narrative, positioning Ireland as the authentic home of Halloween. It offered audiences a chance to experience Halloween through an educational lens, tying the holiday to its fascinating origins. Commercially, Tourism Ireland has shared on October 21, 2024 that the campaign had gone live in 13 key overseas markets and has achieved approximately 100 million views since launch 4 weeks ago. People who viewed the campaign were twice as likely to recognize Ireland’s Halloween origins, plus 70 percent were more likely to want to visit the country. Tourism Ireland estimates overseas visits to the island of Ireland for the Halloween season could be worth an incremental €60 million each year within 5 years.
Takeaway: Connect your brand with authentic, historical storytelling. Bringing audiences back to the roots of a celebration creates a deeper connection and positions your brand as an enriching resource.
P.S. Anyone want to take a trip to Ireland next Halloween?
4. Snickers: Dance into Halloween with Zombie Twerk
Campaign Overview: Snickers added humor to Halloween with a dancing zombie character who twerked to Halloween beats, fueled by a Snickers bar. The light-hearted ad connected Halloween’s playfulness with Snickers’ brand message of satisfying hunger in humorous ways.
Why It Works: The quirky, unexpected storyline aligned perfectly with Snickers’ brand identity, adding fun to Halloween marketing. The dancing zombie captured attention and appealed to a wide audience, keeping Snickers top-of-mind during Halloween. Confession: When the spot zooms in on the twerking zombie butt, I had a laugh out loud moment at my desk!
Takeaway: Embrace playful surprises to create memorable brand connections. Light-hearted campaigns that use humor to engage are more likely to stand out in seasonal marketing.
5. Geico: Bringing Back a Halloween Classic with “Horror Movie”
Campaign Overview: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Geico brought back its iconic “Horror Movie” commercial for the 2024 Halloween season. Originally aired in 2014 as part of the “It’s What You Do” campaign, this 30-second ad has been a fan favorite, blending Hollywood horror aesthetics with Geico’s humor. The ad parodies classic slasher films with characters making obviously poor decisions in a high-stakes, eerie setting, all while a silent axe-wielding villain looms ominously. Now airing during MLB games and Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, “Horror Movie” taps into nostalgia and horror tropes for a perfect Halloween revival.
Why It Works: “Horror Movie” nailed the Hollywood slasher vibe through precise details and well-executed production. By bringing this commercial back, Geico taps into audiences’ familiarity with both classic horror and the ad itself, adding a nostalgic element that resonates with long-time viewers and first-time watchers alike. In a decade, a whole new customer base has emerged, making the ad’s comeback strategic. The company also introduced a new “Horror Movie” spin off featuring its brand mascot on Instagram as a playful nod to the campaign’s legacy.
Takeaway: A well-executed campaign can be timeless. Don’t overlook the power of revisiting beloved ads or creative assets that are still relevant. If your brand has iconic content, consider reintroducing it to keep it fresh in viewers’ minds and leverage its built-in nostalgia.
6. Blinkit: “Happy Diwalloween” Merging Diwali and Halloween in India
Campaign Overview: Blinkit, an Indian delivery service, launched a clever Instagram reel titled “Happy Diwalloween,” blending two popular holidays—Diwali and Halloween. The playful reel tapped the ‘ghost trend’ where people wearing a specific ghost ensemble to Jack Stauber’s “Oh Klahoma” song are featured in different scenarios. The reel highlights both the vibrant festival of lights and the spooky Halloween season, appealing to audiences celebrating both holidays.
Why It Works: This reel stands out for its cultural relevance and timely humor. In a diverse country like India, where both Diwali and Halloween have strong, overlapping followings, Blinkit’s approach brought out the best of both holidays.
Takeaway: Seize the moment! Diwali and Halloween do not always fall on the same day, creating a unique content and storytelling opportunity about how two different holidays can come together. This is a chance to flex your creative muscles and have fun.
7. Snyder’s of Hanover: A Sweet and Salty Halloween
Campaign Overview: Snyder’s of Hanover embraced the spirit of Halloween with their 2024 campaign, “A Sweet and Salty Halloween.” This TV commercial (TVC) featured Snyder’s signature pretzels in a fun twist on traditional Halloween treats, blending the sweet and salty flavors that are perfect for Halloween snacking. The ad follows a horror film style storyline with a scary pretzel-faced man (actually called “Pretzel Face) with a big knife, a spooky voice, and suspenseful music wondering why Halloween is always about candy and not pretzels, claiming how good pretzels and candy are together. It then cuts to him adopting a more sweet voice proclaiming his homemade halloween treats are, “so cute!”
Why It Works: This campaign effectively captures the Halloween vibe with Snyder’s distinctive twist. By highlighting their pretzels as a sweet and salty option, Snyder’s leverages a unique flavor profile that sets them apart in a candy-dominated season. The creation of the pretzel face character also allows the brand to extend the storytelling into other channels like TikTok.
Takeaway: Find ways to position your product as a fresh alternative during popular holidays. Offering an unexpected twist on traditional celebrations can create a memorable campaign that resonates with consumers looking for something different.
Final Thoughts
Each of these Halloween campaigns demonstrated how storytelling, humor, and cultural connections can make seasonal marketing memorable. Whether by creating a character, encouraging user-generated content, or tapping into nostalgia, these brands showed that Halloween continues to be a great occasion for brand storytelling.
Hungry for more holiday themed storytelling inspiration? Check out all of my holiday brand storytelling blog posts!
Jessica Gioglio is the co-author of The Laws of Brand Storytelling and The Power of Visual Storytelling. Professionally, Jessica has led innovative marketing and public relations programs for Dunkin’, TripAdvisor, Sprinklr, and more. Today, Jessica is a keynote speaker, hosts brand storytelling workshops (book her here), and is the founder of With Savvy Media & Marketing, a brand storytelling and content strategy consultancy.