Top 10 Halloween Ads of All Time to Give You Killer Ideas
Last update: 27 April 2023 at 11:40 am
5.00/5Imagine you are alone in your house on a cold winter night, the lamp post outside covered in mist, the window fogged, and there is a sudden blackout. You slowly step out of your cosy bed to find a candle to light the dark, and suddenly you hear a loud thud.
Did it send shivers down your spine? Well, it was just the power coming back on and your television screen playing a horror Halloween commercial.
Big brands often take advantage of this time of year and plan creative, out of the box commercials that are sweet and spicy, just like the theme of Halloween. Each year these ideas get bigger, scarier, and crazier than ever before.
Halloween is a time for frenzy, sweets, costumes, and a lot of creativity. It is the best time for brands to show their creativity to attract customers.
Here are some of the best Halloween ads that will take you to a dark place and leave you with killer ideas for Halloween.
1) Burger King #ScaryClownNight
‘Come as a clown, eat like a king’. With this closing line in their ad campaign, Burger King’s message was straight and clear. They were encouraging people to dress as a clown and claim a free burger. A mockery of its rival, the protagonist, is seen as a clown in the ad resembled Ronald Mcdonald chasing a man on a bicycle on an empty road.
The setting of the ad is a dark, empty road, and the only people to be seen are the clowns. The chase finally ended at a Burger King outlet, where the man finally breathed a sigh of relief, only to realize there were clowns all around.
This sets the base for one of the most brilliant Halloween ads campaign, with creepy music but highly effective in its message. Who wants a Whopper?
2) IKEA Halloween Commercials Campaign
‘Come play with us’ was the idea behind this ad. It combined a child’s imagination with the concept of late night shopping with the family during the Halloween holidays. This short but effective advertising campaign encouraged customers to visit the store at night. It was considered one of the most innovative and best Halloween commercials.
Seen in this Halloween campaign is a young boy on his tricycle moving all around the store. As he manoeuvres through the store aisles, the lights start to flicker, the music changes to a scary tune, and the boy sees a man and a woman dressed as a nanny, calling him to come to play with them.
Scared, he quickly shuts his eyes and opens them seconds later to see it is his parents in Halloween costumes. Such a sigh of relief!
Halloween is seen as a family holiday; hence the importance of shopping with family even at night in the safety of IKEA stores is a message carefully placed in this ad campaign. What could go wrong in an IKEA store?
3) Snickers – Halloween Grocery Store Lady
This Halloween, nothing will satisfy your cravings like snickers. This Halloween campaign is a sweet twist to a chocolate brand Halloween ad campaign. See it to believe it!
Chocolate brands and sweet company’s make the most of the Halloween season. This is a very captivating ad campaign where Snickers is being pitched by a lady grossly dressed in a grocery store, expecting all shopping carts to be filled with snickers.
Her outlook is so scary that she also drives away customers for being forceful. However, the twist at the end, where the lady appears to be children dressed as a gross woman asking shoppers to add snickers to their cart, leaves one feeling amused.
This is one of the Halloween commercials that conveys the message that children prefer snickers, and while shopping for Halloween, one should always pick up a box. What is Halloween without your favourite sweet after-all?
If you too want to create a killer Halloween ads or a whole Halloween campaign, you could team up with a qualified advertising agency to help you in your creative process.
4) Fanta Halloween Campaign: The 13th Floor
Spooky and eerie, precisely the feeling you get after seeing this ad campaign. A different take on Fanta’s brand identity of being a bubbly and refreshing orange drink. The video isn’t orange but a scary red with scarier elements that you see when you stream till the end.
The ad shows a liftman, humble and sweet, taking us through a virtual reality experience inside a lift to the 13th floor. What happens after the lift reaches the 13th floor will leave you screaming and sweating. The flickering of lights, the upside-down clown, the weird doctor, and a witch all sum up to a horror elevator experience.
Now, who wants to go to the 13th floor?
5) LG – So Real, It’s Scary!
Scary and exciting at the same time, LG stands for good experiences. They nailed it with this elevator experiment with real people to introduce their IPS Monitors with life-like colours.
The ad shows these monitors inside the elevator with a hidden camera to capture human reactions. What you will see next will completely blow your mind. The screen placed on the floor would run images of the floor breaking beneath people.
Those inside are seen panicking and holding onto the elevator handles to ensure they don’t fall. It’s downright terrifying to experience this first-hand. Almost as scary as seeing a ghost!
This was one of the perfectly executed Halloween commercials to test their new monitors. The reaction was captivating and natural and reinstated their brand identity.
6) Netflix
Netflix has a unique way to connect with its current audience and looks to capture an entirely new Halloween audience each year. They replaced their famous tagline of Netflix and Chill with Netflix and Chills during Halloween. Netflix captured the market yet again with their clever Halloween marketing campaign.
Playing movies by seasons and events has always been their plus point. However, they always go a step ahead with their Halloween commercials.
Users could watch horror movies depending on the scare-o-meter and decide what to watch based on the graphics. Can there be a better way to spend your Halloween than getting spooked?
7) Bacardi Presents The Zombie – One of the Best Halloween Commercials
An adaptation from famous horror thrillers like The Ring, Saw, and The Shinning, Bacardi, in this ad, projects the idea of what gives you thrills and what keeps you moving. Watching horror flicks takes you off your chair. Indulging in Bacardi also has a similar impact on humans. This was one of the best Halloween commercials.
Comparing a vintage TV screen playing horror flicks and a bar with Bacardi bottles makes for a pleasant sight. The message is people love watching horror flicks alongside a few cocktails.
The element of fun is depicted throughout the ad. The backdrop is dark and eerie, but the mood is always right when it comes to Bacardi.
8) Dior
You must be wondering what an international luxury goods company has to do with Halloween. Dior partnered with supermodel Bella Hadid to introduce different looks, using their hashtag #DiorMakeupHalloween.
The campaign was for the launch of their red lipstick – Rouge Dior 999. Red as a colour can be interpreted differently.
The campaign excites user emotions and encourages people to go bolder and adapt a darker version of red. It created a huge marketing buzz and generated lots of user insight for the brand.
9) Cheetos Commercial
This ad commercial was a creative work by Cheetos. The ad shows a man and his wife hosting a Halloween party. While the wife is dressed as a witch, the man seems to be unprepared with his costume.
He sees a bowl of Cheetos and quickly gets an idea. He covers himself with Cheetos as a Halloween costume for a party at his house. The moment he stepped inside the party, everybody, including his wife, started to attack him to grab a bite of the Cheetos.
While not exactly creepy, but it sends a good message across about the product itself and was considered one of the best Halloween commercials. Cheetos – Dangerously cheesy is what the ad intended to portray.
Time to grab some cheese?
10) Coca Cola Halloween Ad with Dracula
An old and vintage ad from Coca Cola’s 1992 ad campaign worked for the company’s brand positioning properly. Dracula was once considered scary, and almost all horror movies portrayed this monster in mean light.
This ad shows a beautiful woman sleeping when Dracula enters her room through the window. The woman quickly grabs a Coca Cola can and gives it to him. The moment he bites on the can, he turns human. Finished with a tagline that says – Can’t beat the real thing, Coca Cola brings up the idea of being alive with this ad campaign.
Time For You To Create Your Halloween Ads
Halloween is the best time to explore and capture the market for many brands. This time of the year has been known in history for bringing creative ad campaigns and commercials to the forefront. These Halloween themed ads have been known to live in people’s hearts for years.
Start creating your own ads by looking at some advertising agencies to get your creative juices flowing.
