For my last blog post I thought I’d do a bit of face-off between two creative, fun Halloween themed online marketing going around at the moment. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with seasonal marketing as the campaigns I feel often take a hard sell approach for otherwise unwanted items (looking at you annoying Christmas ads). However, the opportunities online that various apps, websites and social media offer have paved the way for some creative and quirky campaigns that are doing some good brand building.
1. The Cheetos & Google toilet paper bomb
This is an online game/simulation that allows you to type in an address that google maps locates for you and you the Cheetos mascot then toilet paper bombs it for you. It is in the spirit of Halloween, has the brand advertised all over the simulation, and generating active, engaged users.
So go ahead and toilet paper your best friends house, take a screenshot or share on social media and freak them out a little!
2. Tide Vine series
Tide are releasing seven vine videos in the lead up to Halloween. Each will reference various classic horror movies and feature the tagline, ‘Stains better be scared’ and #scaredstainless. To promote the videos they are buying promoted tweets, to help the vines spread. This is a cute initiative, and clever product tie-in. This works similarly to traditional advertising unlike the above example, and therefore also runs the risk of low user engagement.
Check out https://twitter.com/tide for the vine videos
Here is the first one which is my favorite so far: https://vine.co/v/hwVzqF3nUHD
Overall, I think both campaigns work well to raise brand visibility, and get people interacting and talking about the brand, but I guess someone will do some number crunching at the end to see if it was all worth it…
Which do you think is more effective and why? Also- how do you feel about seasonal marketing- necessary, fun, annoying?
That’s all from me, Happy Halloween, over and out.
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