It’s officially spooky season, and businesses across the world are currently scrambling to figure out how they can capitalise on Halloween this year.
Halloween is one of the most anticipated days of the year, and smart businesses should at least create content to mark the occasion. Some businesses take it a step further, building full Halloween marketing campaigns to connect with new customers. It’s the same logic behind marketing your business around any big cultural moment, you just need to know how to do it well.
Whether you want to just provide Halloween offers or do a whole campaign, you’re going to need some inspiration, and what better inspiration than to check out Halloween ads and campaigns that were a huge success?
At Blaze, we’ve put together a list of some of the best Halloween marketing campaigns, so keep reading to find out more and get some spooktacular inspiration.
Heinz Tomato Blood
This is one of our favourites because it just takes cultural awareness to the next level and turns it into a legitimately good Halloween campaign. If you never got fake blood from your parents for your Halloween costume, Heinz ketchup often served as the next best thing.
This campaign worked so well because it tapped into Halloween excitement and showed real social awareness, demonstrating that the brand pays attention to consumers and understands the multi-purpose uses of its product.
The best part? Heinz also offered special ‘Tomato Blood Costume Kits’, including makeup, brushes, rhinestones, tattoos, and a bottle of their themed ketchup.
Heinz didn’t just use this bottle for one campaign concept; they embraced something that always works for brands – comedy – adding to the campaign with their ‘Vegetarian Vampire’ marketing campaign, a really funny ad that called for vampires to switch to Heinz Tomato Blood as an ethical alternative.
Heinz also rebranded the bottle with large vampire teeth, which helped it stand out from other sauces on the shelf.
This Halloween campaign had everything a good campaign needs. It understood its audience, adjusted its branding, and embraced the funny side of Halloween, which is why it made it to the top of our rankings.
Burger King – Scary Clown Night
All of you probably remember that era of time in the late 2010s when everyone thought it would be a good idea to dress up as a terrifying clown and roam the streets. This was great for businesses across the world who leaned into this – not so great for coulrophobics.
Burger King was one of the main businesses to lean into the clown and encouraged customers to visit participating locations dressed as a clown and receive a free Whopper, coining the slogan ‘come as a clown, eat like a king’.
What made this campaign so successful was the customer participation. We all love a bit of fun at Halloween, and we certainly love free food, so the hype around the event was massive. This campaign helped to farm user-generated content with very little intervention from Burger King, with customers posting their clown outfits and tagging the brand, bringing plenty of attention to the brand.
They didn’t just stop there; Burger King installed voice-activated mirrors in restaurant bathrooms. If a customer said “cancelled clown” three times into the mirror, the lights would dim, and a vision of Ronald McDonald would appear in the glass. This was tailor-made for Instagram and TikTok, as thousands of people filmed their terrified reactions and posted them online, while also giving them the opportunity to throw a slight dig at their main competitor – McDonald’s.
We love it when brands have fun, especially at Halloween when all of our inner children come out to play, and this campaign got everyone involved and encouraged everyone to get into that Halloween spirit.
MAC Cosmetics – #MACHalloween
This campaign is the perfect example of how to get UGC without much effort. Already a globally renowned business, MAC used the tools they had at their disposal without a big cash injection or a rebrand, basing the whole campaign around one simple hashtag; the campaign has proven so successful that it’s used annually.
If this campaign doesn’t show the power social media has for businesses, we don’t know what will.
This campaign focused on an artistry-first approach, tapping into the market of ‘do it yourself’ Halloween costumes, encouraging followers to use their MAC Cosmetics products to create jaw-dropping Halloween looks and share them on social media with the hashtag MacHalloween.
This was positioned as an opportunity to showcase consumer creativity and the quality and versatility of the brand’s makeup range. As the campaign has returned annually, MAC has collected some of its favourite looks created as part of this trend and put them into a ‘Halloween Hub’, along with instructions on how to recreate the looks, along with links to products that could be used.
This campaign is a win-win for MAC and its customers. The makeup artists used in this campaign get a platform to share their talents, and MAC get to capitalise on the authority built on these looks, while also fostering a closer relationship with their customers.
We love this campaign because of its simplicity, and it showcases exactly why social media marketing is one of the most valuable tools that a business can have in its arsenal. No massive budget spent, no depending on influencers, just a hashtag and a seriously good line of products.
Liquid Death – Dismembered Moments
At Blaze Media, you know we’re massive fans of Liquid Death and how they approach marketing, but what you might not know is that we’re also massive fans of Martha Stewart, so this particular marketing campaign had us all excited.
The Dismembered Moments campaign is brilliant because it’s so random. Liquid Death took Martha Stewart and a life-sized hand candle clutching a can of Liquid Death and ran with it.
This wasn’t just random for the sake of random; it was a deliberate masterclass in unconventional marketing, which is something that the brand does best.
Their CEO, Mike Cessario, said it best: Liquid Death isn’t just a beverage company; it’s an entertainment company that monetises its beverages, and this campaign had us all entertained back in 2022.
This campaign works so well because of the hilarious contrast of its core components, with Martha Stewart having no business appearing alongside a dismembered hand, yet it still works.
What brands should take from this is that, when you can, have fun with your campaigns and leave people asking questions. We see far too many brands play it safe, when history shows that the out-there, seemingly random ad campaigns are the ones that thrive.
This also emphasises the value of having creatives on your side who can come up with these barmy ideas, and at Blaze Media, we have a full team of creatives waiting to help you create a Halloween marketing campaign that converts. Have a look at the work we’ve done for other brands if you want a feel for how we think.
IKEA – Monsters Not Included
This is arguably one of the most famous marketing campaigns on our list.
We all have memories of being tucked up in bed when we were little, then lying there and letting our imaginations turn the shadows into monsters and ruin any chance we had at a good night’s sleep.
It’s true that there are no original experiences, and at one point in our lives we’ve all felt that shadow fear; IKEA recognised this and made it the basis of a whole Halloween campaign.
The products showcased in this ad campaign are designed to take away those classic fears from children, but they’re almost beside the point. What IKEA actually sold here was the feeling of a light going on.
Made with Ogilvy UK and Ogilvy Berlin back in 2023, the ads are shot like proper horror films. Slow, creeping pans, creepy nursery rhyme chanting, strings that would not be out of place in Psycho. Then someone flicks a switch, the room floods with warm light, and there is nothing there.
That is the whole trick. IKEA never sells you the scare; it sells you the relief that comes straight after it. The fear is the setup, the product is the punchline, and it all lands in about twenty seconds without a single pumpkin or cobweb in sight.
It is also a masterclass in staying on brand. IKEA has spent decades telling us it makes the everyday better, and this is just that promise dressed up for October. Compare it to Liquid Death, and you have got two brands at opposite ends of the tonal spectrum, both winning because they leaned harder into who they already are rather than chasing whatever felt seasonally appropriate.
The really smart part is that it works on two audiences at once. Kids get a monster-free bedroom, parents get reassurance, and everyone else just enjoys a well-made horror pastiche. Most seasonal campaigns pick one audience and hope for the best, and IKEA captured two with a simple strategy.
Key Takeaways From These Halloween Campaigns
We didn’t just make this blog to rank our favourite campaigns; we did it because we think businesses can learn a lot ahead of the 2026 Halloween season. What you should be taking away from these successful marketing campaigns includes:
Showcase Your Personality
All famous marketing campaigns have something in common: they showcase the personality of the people behind the brand and humanise them. Think Aldi; nobody thought of their marketing until they started having fun and showcasing their personality through trolling other businesses.
We know it’s ironic, but Halloween isn’t where you pretend to be something you’re not; it’s where you have a real opportunity to have fun and show everyone what your brand’s really about. That’s also why it pays to keep the human touch in your marketing rather than handing the whole thing over to a tool.
Too many brands can fall into the trap of taking themselves too seriously, and unless this tone lends itself well to your industry, you’re not going to connect with a new audience, and competitors are going to outperform you.
Halloween gives you permission to be silly for a few weeks, so take it. The brands people remember in October are the ones that clearly enjoyed themselves, so make sure you’re one of those brands.
Think About How You Can Get UGC
Halloween is one of the few times of year people actively want to post. Costumes, pumpkins, dogs in bat wings- it’s all going up anyway, so give them a reason to tag you in it.
Run a costume competition. Ask for photos of your product in the most haunted corner of their house and offer a prize that’s actually worth entering for, not a 10% discount code. The point is you get a month of content you didn’t have to make, and social proof that’s far more convincing than anything you’d write about yourself.
Once the entries start landing, the best ones are worth putting a bit of budget behind. A paid social push on your strongest piece of UGC will always outperform a polished ad that nobody asked for.
People trust other customers more than they trust the business itself, so why not use this to your advantage and give your customer base something fun to do?
Understand The Impact of Your Product or Service
Not every business sells sweets and fake blood, and that’s fine. The trick is working out what Halloween actually means for your customers, then meeting them there.
A plumber can talk about the horrors lurking in your drains. An accountant can list the scariest mistakes on a tax return. A salon can do the looks people are searching for in the last week of October. It’s the same thinking behind social media marketing for property businesses; the sector doesn’t matter half as much as knowing what your audience actually cares about.
If you can’t find the link, don’t force it. A bad Halloween pun on a serious service does more damage than sitting the month out.
Make the Most of Social Media
This is where Halloween earns its keep. Engagement is up, people are in a good mood, and the algorithm rewards anything that makes someone stop scrolling.
Short video does the heavy lifting: behind-the-scenes of the office decorations, your team arguing over costumes, a quick take on the trend everyone’s already talking about. Rough and fast beats polished and late, though it’s worth knowing when proper video and photography will do a better job than a phone camera.
Plan it now, though; the best Halloween content goes out in early October, not on the 31st when everyone’s already at the party.
That goes for your website too. Seasonal searches start climbing in late September, so any landing page you want ranking needs to be live and indexed well before then, which is where SEO does the quiet work in the background. And once the pumpkins are away, you’re straight into peak season, so get your Black Friday timeline sorted while you’re at it.
Get Your Halloween Campaign Ready With Blaze Media
This guide should give you a clearer idea of how to market your business this Halloween. At Blaze Media, we have seen far too many businesses miss the opportunity to really shine during the Halloween season, and with it already being September, if your business is stuck on a strategy, you’re in the right place.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you turn Halloween into a money-making opportunity for your business.
