Boo!

Close your eyes.

Imagine Halloween.

What do you see?

A neighborhood draped in darkness and glowing lights? Jack-O-Lanterns scattered everywhere? Kids in costumes, swarming the pavements, filling the air with talk, laughter, and shouts of 'trick or trick?' And of course, what's Halloween without a Halloween party for the adults and topping it off with frightfest-a-thon of movies all night long.

The good old days...

Or perhaps, with marketing in the back of your mind, it's all the Halloween-themed ads filled with orange-and-black colors, cats, witches, strange brews, skeletal figures, and other gruesomely fun imagery?

Once again, the winds of the holiday season are slowly picking up, with Halloween just around the ghostly corner. The leaves have changed color, and, having cleaned the closets from spiderwebs (oh, the irony) the jackets are out, storefronts are stacked with candy of varieties that would make Willy Wonka gasp, and newspapers (or online publications, as more people know it these days) are filled with Halloween-themed promotions (aka advertisements).

Cheesy, but effective.

This is what Halloween is about: Spooky, cheerful fun. And this is what you should have in your content, whether it's a banner, print ad, Tik Tok or Snapchat clip, Instagram story, Facebook post, and yes, even LinkedIn: Even 'suited' businesses can partake in Halloween festivities.

It's not about metrics (it never really was, but that's an argument for another day), but about being part of the festivities, putting a grin on people faces and getting them to take action - even if in the end it's not exactly what you intended. Take a look at the ad below. A person may never have heard of L'Emouler knives before, but it may have inspired him to get his friends together and go out as the "fright gang." You never know how your ad will inspire, which is what's so great, and valuable in creative advertising.

Looks like a long line in horror alley.

Interactive games and contests are always a good way to get the crowd into the 'spirit' of things; trivia(what was the origin country of Halloween? Did you know women had a Halloween tradition to help them find husbands? Can't get scarier than that)) and how about a blog about 'that time a Freddy Kruger lookalike walked around the block and scared the bejesus out of everyone' or some other creative, spooky tale from real life.

The holiday season, starting with Halloween is the best time of the year to get creative when it comes to copywriting and content that's informative, useful and entertaining. All you need to do is a quick Google of "Halloween ads," and you'll get an endless array of creative print Halloween ads. And there's nothing like classic Halloween TV ads that's good not just for a fun hour with a bucket of popcorn (or candy) by your side, but could be an excellent source of creative inspiration.

A cool one from M&M...

There's lots of fun ways you can go with this: The shocking/frightening (too much material to choose from here, unfortunately); the amusingly scary; the fun, the nostalgic, the parodic, the "strictly useful" (but boring), and any combination of the above.

As the world is still struggling to recover/cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, people are looking for some semblance of normalcy. Halloween, with its traditional (this year, untraditional) trick-or-treating, parades, and parties, represents a symbol of normality, in one form or another. Just seeing those mischievous Jack-o-lanterns scattered about the neighborhoods, orange-and-black decorations, or the occasional mock skeletons at the piano on somebody's lawn, is kinda comforting.

IT sucks to get run over...

Halloween is an extremely visual holiday, so your promotions and content overall should be visually strong, eye-catching. If your business has an Instagram account, you can use this to great effect: Decorations. Costumes. Banners. Signs. Email/Newsletters? Perfect to distribute Pumpkin Pie and other Halloween recipes (eyeball candy, anyone?). And don't forget filters, of course.

You don't have tp sell anything particular; And with social media at your disposal, it's a great time to join the Halloween party with tips, tricks, even little-known anecdotes and images that can all be easily shared and get you noticed.

Happy Halloween!