Halloween campaign ideas for brands who want to be less basic

In the hectic run up to Black Friday and Christmas, Halloween marketing can get a bit forgotten. Halloween campaign ideas are often interchangeable. Brands swap their logo for something spooky and email out a discount, and you struggle to tell one from the other, which is a shame because Halloween is a time when brands should be creative. Think outside the pumpkin or ghost theme and go for something a little weird or unhinged.

We’ve put together this guide for the brands who want to do better this year. We’re looking at the strategy behind Halloween marketing campaign ideas, the thinking that makes people stop scrolling, and the brands that are getting it right.

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Why people forget most Halloween campaigns before Christmas

Halloween is a big deal for consumers. People in the US spent a record $13.1 billion on Halloween in 2025, up from $11.6 billion the year before, with per-person spending peaking at $114.45. In the UK, shoppers spent an estimated £687 million on the spooky season in 2025 and this is expected to increase to £777 million this year.

The money is there, but many brands are lacking the imagination, treating Halloween as a seasonal marketing check box. Putting a costume on your campaign will do nothing if your brand isn’t saying anything. The ones that get attention are the ones that stay true to who they are, but use Halloween as a chance to be a slightly stranger version of their brand.

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What you can learn from the best Halloween marketing campaigns

The best Halloween marketing campaigns share one thing: they focus on humans and what their audience wants out of Halloween rather than just hard selling their product. Here are five of our favourites.

1. Heinz

For three Octobers, Heinz leant into the nostalgia of kids using ketchup as fake blood for their costumes and rebranded theirs as Tomato Blood. In 2022, they took the storytelling even further and launched Toby the Vegetarian Vampire, a campaign to convince people (and other vampires) to drink Heinz Tomato Blood as a vegetarian alternative.

2. Liquid Death

The canned water brand teamed up with Martha Stewart for Dismembered Moments, an unexpected collaboration on a life-sized severed hand candle. Stewart’s usual charm clashed perfectly with the horror, and it worked because it was so bizarre. Who wouldn’t want a dismembered hand clutching a Liquid Death can in their living room?

3. M&M’S

What’s scarier than an empty candy bowl on Halloween? Mars found that people were most anxious about running out of sweets, so they built a Rescue Squad of free pop-up candy booths and instant candy delivery in the US to solve this problem. This witty omnichannel campaign turned brand awareness into brand loyalty.

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4. Dunkin’

Dunkin’ turned its seasonal Spider Donut into Spidey D , a character who hijacked the brand’s social account with chaotic content. Spidey’s unhinged personality hiked up engagement and the comment section went wild. This approach proved that you don’t need budget to make a big impact; they sold out merchandise and earned millions of impressions while spending next to nothing.

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5. IKEA

IKEA stayed true to their values in their Monsters Not Included campaigns. The ads played on the fear of monsters under the bed, pairing creepy music in seemingly eerie houses, then flicking on the warm IKEA lights, completely changing the expectations. They managed to lean into the spooky season while still being on brand.

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What sets these brands apart is that they each expressed their personalities through a unique insight. That’s what gets attention: finding a creative direction that your brand can own and making it something that no one else is doing. We’ve written more about that here in our roundup of the 10 best marketing campaigns of 2026 (so far), which can be applied to Halloween advertising and beyond.

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Think outside your category

Halloween marketing ideas that are just a copycat of your competitors are never going to be remembered. When brands try to do the same as everyone else, all Halloween advertising starts to look identical. Halloween is all about dressing up and playing a character; why can’t brands do the same?

We love the specificity of Halloween, especially gay Halloween. And while dressing up as someone so niche that only a handful of queers understand is not the best idea for your brand, you can take ideas for unique inspiration, from drag artists, horror movies, cosplayers, witchcraft, Día de los Muertos, and other traditions that you may not associate with your brand.

Halloween gives you the chance to think outside your own category and speak to an adjacent audience you'd never usually reach. There are opportunities for brand partnerships or co-branding with people who are already in on the culture. As always, co-create with the community you’re marketing to.

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Creative Halloween campaign ideas

Here are five creative Halloween campaign ideas that you can adapt to fit your brand.

1. Make it interactive

Interactive Halloween campaigns consistently outperform static ones because they give people something to do and get people talking. Add gamification elements to your website; a trick or treat spin-to-win or a which witch are you quiz gets browsers involved. Quizzes can also be used as data collection if you're smart about it, and they give people a result they want to share.

2. Solve a seasonal problem

What are your audience’s pain points in October, and can you fix it with a service or an activation? Solve a real problem and people will remember you for it.

3. Build a cause into it

Not every campaign has to sell. Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF has been around since the 1950s, raising awareness and collecting millions of donations in orange collection boxes. If your brand has a reason to back something, now could be the time to do something different.

4. Launch something limited

Limited-edition products, themed packaging, seasonal bundles and merchandise all work because scarcity sells. Just make sure the product is on brand and something that people will actually want to add to their cart.

5. Run Halloween promotions

A flash sale with a countdown timer, well-timed discount codes, or a Halloween twist on your loyalty programme can drive conversions without training your audience to only ever buy at a discount. That last point is important to take into consideration when running sales, and something we’ve written more about in our piece on Black Friday marketing ideas that build your brand, not just your discounts.

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Halloween social media that stops the scroll

Halloween social media is often done but not always well; posting a spooky graphic doesn’t count as a campaign. Try user-generated content like costume contests and giveaways, or a custom hashtag that engages your audience.

Don’t post the same content on every platform. Think unhinged, witty content for TikTok, storytelling for Instagram, aesthetic for Pinterest and longer form on YouTube. Facebook is still relevant if you’re trying to reach parents, older Millennials, or Gen X, rather than just Gen Z. Influencer marketing works if you collaborate with creators that fit the brief and your brand.

Take inspo from Dunkin’ and lean into your brand’s personality. This will get you further than any polished social media strategy. But if you do need help with your socials, our guide on building a social media strategy in 2026 covers this in more detail.

Another one from Spidey D because we are obsessed.

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Halloween marketing ideas for small businesses

Dunkin’ also showed that some of the best ideas can be done on a small budget. Some of the best Halloween marketing ideas for small businesses cost almost nothing, like a social campaign or something on or offline. The key is to pick one strong idea that fits your brand and commit to it.

This could be a cleverly crafted email sequence with personalisation and a subject line that hooks. For products, bonus gift cards, Halloween bundles, or free shipping help with cart abandonment. Many small business owners have community on their doorstep. Events, pop-ups, partnerships or window shop displays can draw in local crowds; small things that have a distinctly human touch.

You don’t have to re-design your entire website to blood-dripping fonts and ghosts that scream as you scroll. In fact, please don’t do that; it’s a waste of time and money, and will come off a little too on the gimmicky side.

If you’re on a budget, it can be tempting to whack a prompt into AI and stick the garish result on a poster, but please don’t do this either. The whole point of a Halloween marketing strategy is to stand out. AI-generated cheery jack-o-lanterns and cartoon vampires will do the exact opposite. Yes, AI is easy and cheap, but it’s also great at producing content that ranges from just-about-mediocre to pretty-terrible-actually and will not entice your audience to buy, or even take a second look.

Halloween advertising or any campaigns are not going to land unless there are humans behind it. You need their nuance, creativity, and cultural understanding to create something worth its place amongst the many Halloween campaigns.

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When to start your Halloween marketing campaigns

As with all seasonal campaigns, the earlier the better. Nearly half of shoppers (49%) started buying in September or earlier in 2025. If your Halloween campaign doesn't launch until the 28th, you've missed most of the spending.

We recommend planning in August, teasing in late September, then running through October. Don’t forget to follow up in early November and thank your customers before you get stuck into the next campaign (marketers in Q4, we salute you).

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How to build a Halloween campaign that stands out

Use real human insight and create with humans, choose an idea that works with your brand’s personality and values, and create a reason to get your audience involved. Whether you’re a big brand in London, or a small local US business, if you’re marketing to adults, families, or trick-or-treaters, these key points carry across every industry and audience. Get the idea right first, and you can add the monsters afterwards.

We love Halloween at I Am Female*; the chance to be a bit weird and think outside of a brand’s usual norms. If you’re thinking about a Halloween campaign that goes beyond the gimmicks, book a call with us. We exist to help brands be bolder.

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