In 30 seconds:
- Halloween TikTok marketing for brands is all about building fun into your social media strategy.
- Gen Z knows you’re building brand awareness, but making it easy for TikTokers to create videos boosts brand sentiment amongst this demographic too.
- TikTok is an amazing social media platform for showcasing your fans’ talents. If you’re celebrating them, you’ll stand out for all the right reasons.
Isn’t it funny how the most sinister holiday of the year is also one of the most celebrated? Just about everyone loves Halloween and there’s inspiration for getting into the spirit wherever you turn! For Halloween TikTok marketing, it’s the perfect opportunity to express yourself during the Halloween season. There are plenty of opportunities for brands to get involved with the fun.
For brands looking at Halloween marketing, TikTok is the perfect way to go. In 2020, TikTok influenced 59% of users’ Halloween costume purchases and 42% of their sweets and chocolate purchases, and the platform is constantly growing – meaning plenty more potential customers for your Halloween TikTok content this year. That’s an exciting prospect – and a great excuse to get creative with your Halloween campaign.
Want to take your TikTok es-scare-pades to the next level? We’ve got your back with a list of 5 brands killing it on TikTok to help inspire your own Halloween business marketing ideas!
Why TikTok is so good for Halloween
With Halloween coming up, there’s much more than pumpkins, costumes and sweets to get excited about. For brands developing their content strategy, Halloween promotions are a time to get original and a bit wacky. TikTok is a space for sharing fun, spontaneous content – so it’s no surprise that TikTok and Halloween are a perfect match for driving brand awareness and sales.
From reposting user-generated content to participating (or even setting) challenges and everything in-between, TikTok marketing is a boundless playground. 97% of Gen Z search for inspiration on social media, and TikTok is swiftly becoming this demographic‘s favourite social platform. That means there’s a huge youth target audience on TikTok – and loads of ways to win them.
But what does a truly great Halloween Campaign look like? If you’re searching for the perfect inspiration to nail your Halloween marketing on TikTok, look no further. We’ve outlined our favourites below.
@asos Face + Body for every version of you this Halloween #ASOSAlterEgo 😇✨😈
@zeewhatididthere #ad Meet my alter ego with @ASOS Face + Body 🎃 #ASOSAlterEgo #ad
1. ASOS Alter Ego
Ever the trendsetter, ASOS’ 2021 Halloween TikTok marketing campaign made use of a new TikTok feature that’s still currently in Alpha testing phase, called ‘Branded Mission’. It’s a new way brands can encourage more user-generated content in the form of submissions to their branded videos – and it’s supercharged ASOS’ Halloween challenge, #ASOSAlterEgo.
The challenge itself is fun, simple, and perfect for ASOS’ brand. The ecommerce giant asks participants to dress up as their Halloween “alter ego”, showing their fashion and beauty transformation alongside the hashtag #ASOSAlterEgo. ASOS has also created Halloween-esque branded music for participants to use, and a branded effect that splits the screen into 4; making it easier for TikTokers to make amazing looking and sounding videos.
Even better, TikTokers participating in the challenge can submit their videos to ASOS’ Branded Mission. This gets TikTok videos “boosted” for free. This is a great encouragement for users who want to grow their TikTok as it increases their chances of going viral on Tikok’s algorithm. It’s an awesome way that ASOS can garner high quality videos while rewarding their fans with TikTok growth. So far, ASOS’ top Alter Ego branded videos have over 100,000 free views, and #ASOSAlterEgo has received over 140 million views.
2. HEINZ Tomato Blood Ketchup
It hasn’t gone unnoticed by HEINZ that its iconic tomato ketchup has slapstick-gore connotations. HEINZ’ “Tomato Blood Ketchup” celebrated the blood-red appearance of the product with a limited-edition bottle in the run up to Halloween last year. It was the same sauce everyone knows and loves – but with a distinctively spooky design twist. Even better? HEINZ added to the fun with a hashtag challenge exclusively for its TikTok audience.
Using the hashtags #HeinzHalloween and #Sweepstakes, HEINZ encouraged TikTokers to submit a Halloween-themed video featuring a bottle of HEINZ Ketchup in order to participate in a huge giveaway. HEINZ didn’t sell its “Tomato Blood Ketchup” edition widely in stores, so entering the brand’s TikTok challenge was the only way fans could get their hands on the product at the time. This campaign was therefore a great way to generate user-generated content while forming a tight bond with their TikTok audience.
This October, HEINZ’ Halloween ketchup is widely available in shops – which is another reason why we’re impressed with the brand’s Halloween TikTok marketing strategy. HEINZ rewarded its TikTok fanbase with exclusive access, while driving hype for the product and making a real splash on social media (hello, 5 billion views!) – and a year later, the wider public can shop the product and take inspiration from TikTok to join the fun.
3. Chipotle Boorito
Chipotle’s annual “Boorito” Halloween campaign got an injection of TikTok-orientated spookiness for 2020 – and we were here for it. Each Halloween, Chipotle stages a “Boorito” promotion, asking fans of the Mexican restaurant to wear a Halloween costume in its restaurants in order to win a free burrito. It’s a popular challenge that’s been going for 20 years – but in the face of the pandemic, it had to change. That’s where TikTok came in.
In collaboration with Chipotle “superfan” and social media personality Addison Rae (@addisonre), Chipotle challenged TikTokers to record videos of themselves and their Halloween costumes with the hashtag #boorito in order to receive discount codes that were limited to 500,000, and enter a sweepstake to win a whole year of free burritos.
In order to guarantee quality and a clear brand aesthetic, Chipotle stipulated that winning videos must use the remix of “The Monster Mash” by Ethan Fields as their music and TikTok’s morph feature to illustrate their transformation into a Halloween character. The result? 4.2 billion views on TikTok and a clear brand message that prioritised fans’ safety – as well as the Halloween fun.
4. Chupa Chups Chupalloween
Trick-or-treating is a big part of Halloween, and it wouldn’t work without sweets. Something else that doesn’t exist without sweets? Iconic confectioner Chupa Chups. The brand has demonstrated its affiliation with Gen Z through its Halloween TikTok marketing, cementing its position as a key player for Halloween – even when trick-or-treating isn’t possible.
In 2020, many countries’ October lockdowns made going from house to house collecting sweets a bad idea. It could have meant a massive business opportunity lost, but Chupa Chups combated it with social media marketing. It launched its branded hashtag, #Chupalloween on TikTok, encouraging users to dress up as Halloween characters – and created branded stickers, music and face filters.
#Chupalloween is a great example of how brands don’t need to centre their Halloween marketing activity strictly around giveaways. TikTokers simply love to create fun content. Chupa Chups’ branded music tapped into TikTokers’ love of Halloween remixes, while the filters made it super easy for fans to create Halloween content: all they needed was their face, and the filters did the rest! The result? A mountain of user-generated content and over 900 million TikTok views, exploding Chupa Chups’ brand awareness.
@thedaintyfunk The @nyxcosmetics Haunted Dollhouse turned me into a vampire! Funktober Day 19: Half Vampiric #nyxcosmeticspartner #walmartbeauty
@dannydefreitas Living my Broken Doll Fantasy using @nyxcosmetics_uk Matte Finish Setting Spray #DollHouseChallenge AD
5. NYX Haunted Dollhouse
NYX Professional Makeup smashed their 2020 Halloween TikTok Marketing campaign with their much-lauded Haunted Dollhouse challenge. Kicking off with a collaboration with special-effects makeup artist Mimi Choi (@mimles) to create Halloween beauty looks using the brand’s products, NYX asked TikTokers to take up the challenge themselves. The result was amazing.
Using the hashtag #DOLLHOUSECHALLENGE, NYX encouraged TikTok users to turn themselves into creepy dolls, finishing with using the brand’s Matte Setting Spray to keep their Halloween makeup in place. The brand enthused, “while you might be locked in, your artistry is unleashed”. NYX leveraged TikTok’s visual nature to encourage users to use their products, even though Halloween parties were banned.
Of course, TikTokers relished the opportunity to get creative. The hashtag was used well over 650,000 times as makeup enthusiasts showcased their tutorial skills. The ‘creepy dolls’ ranged from the uncanny to the downright scary – and in the process, NYX became the most viewed makeup brand in the UK over Halloween with over 1.5bn global views.
Halloween TikTok marketing strategies
Halloween is an incredible marketing opportunity for any brand, whichever platform you decide to use – but TikTok presents a unique opportunity to be self-expressive. That’s something that clearly resonates with Gen Z, so it’s something that makes Halloween TikTok marketing campaigns stand out for this younger audience.
Perhaps putting yourself out there on TikTok is a little ‘spooky’. We understand that understanding Gen Z doesn’t come naturally to every brand – in fact, that’s why we’re here. Developing video content ideas, building your marketing strategy, nailing your influencer marketing, we’ve got it covered on Gen Z‘s favourite social media platforms.
Fanbytes have helped many brands come up with new, innovative and impressive TikTok marketing ideas and grow their TikTok accounts. With the right campaign, you can accelerate your business and create amazing content that’ll have a young demographic raving about you all year long. Interested? Get in touch today!
Want to learn more? Check out these links to help you win nail Halloween Marketing on TikTok:
