Weekly Shorts: Trick or treat? Best Halloween influencer marketing campaigns

The proliferation of platforms and formats like short-videos have changed the influencer marketing game for marketers, brands and creators. In this fast-evolving space, keep up with the big trends and hot topics that matter in Storyboard18’s Weekly Shorts in collaboration with affable.ai, an end-to-end AI-powered influencer marketing platform. Track how creators, communities and brands are engaging with users and disrupting marketing to get a sharp and fast insight into present and future trends.

Every year, brands go out of their way to create exciting Halloween campaign ideas to captivate holiday season shoppers. For them, Halloween influencers are the go-to advertising channels. Influencers, with their authentic connections and relatable content, help you maximize holiday sales. Take Chipotle's Roblox influencer campaign, for example.

In 2021, Chipotle celebrated the 21st anniversary of its Chipotle Boorito Halloween campaign by foraying into the metaverse with influencers. The brand created a virtual restaurant game with Roblox. The influencers started exciting conversations with their followers to create buzz before the launch.

Chipotle also invited Roblox or gaming influencers to play the game ahead of the launch. They released YouTube videos on the launch day to explain to followers how it works. The results: Chipotle earned over 8 million visits to the virtual restaurant, 4.6+ billion PR impressions, and 50k+ social mentions.

Since we're stepping into September already, this is the perfect time for you to begin planning your Halloween influencer marketing campaign. So, to help you begin planning, we have broken down the best Halloween influencer campaigns towards the end of the article to get your creative juices flowing.

So why wait? Let's dig in!

1. NYX Professional Makeup - Taking inspiration from fictional characters

L'Oreal cosmetics brand NYX Professional Makeup is widely known for its out-of-the-box influencer marketing campaigns. They often partner with globally trending makeup influencers and use their content for their organic social media content and creator licensing ads. The Halloween 2022 campaign was no different.

The brand partnered with makeup Halloween influencers, including @kaylinnbihari, @maddys.makeup, @justaiming, and more from all over the world to promote their limited edition products like lip lingerie, marshmallow primer, and plump setting spray. The influencers dressed up as the fictional characters from Cirque Du Soleil, a no-animal character-driven circus in Las Vegas. The Halloween makeup looks inspired several consumers to create their makeup looks for Halloween using the brand's products.

Many customers imitated the looks shared by the Halloween influencers, creating tons of UGC for the company. NYX shared this content on their social media page to boost holiday sales.

2. Spirit Halloween - Partnering with a mix of influencers

Spirit Halloween, the Halloween pop-up shop in the USA, collaborates with Halloween influencers to spread the word about their costumes and home decor accessories.

In 2022, they collaborated with a mix of Halloween campaign fashion, makeup, mom, dance, and niche Halloween influencers. The campaign started in late September and ran till the holiday to hype up their target audience and make them aware of Spirit Halloween products. The influencers showcased the products in fun and creative ways while relating to their audience in their own way.

For example, @merrickhanna shared quick and fun transitions to spotlight his Halloween outfit ideas inspired by the brand's clothing collection. Mom influencer @twomomsandthebabes dressed up her family as famous Toy Story characters and posted an image posing right in front of the Spirit Halloween store to boost in-store traffic. On the other hand, @annieeebewitch shared an unboxing video of her favorite decor items from the store.

3. Heinz - Creating a fictional character for the occasion

The USA-based ketchup brand Heinz went all out for its 2022 Halloween campaign. They collaborated with actor, comedian, and entertainment influencer EJ Marcus to relaunch their limited-edition tomato blood ketchup for Halloween.

For the campaign, Marcus dressed up as Toby - The Vegetarian Vampire who follows a veggie diet and eats only tomato blood rather than human blood. Heinz shared the adventures of the vampire on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch to reach a mass audience. They also partnered with TikTok creators and asked them to share creative videos of how they use tomato blood for Halloween-themed recipes, decorations, and outfits.

This Halloween campaign was a hit on TikTok, especially as it inspired other creators to share their creative videos using the product. The #heinztomatoblood currently has over 1.2 million views.

4. Hot Topic - Going with good old product seeding campaigns

Hot Topic went for a product seeding campaign for Halloween 2022. They gave Halloween costumes to micro-influencers like musicians and models, who often dress up like famous characters, cartoons, vampires, and more. Seeing their type of content, they seemed like the perfect choice for the brand to showcase their Halloween costumes. The influencers used the products to create inspiring Halloween outfit ideas and shared static posts, stories, and Reels featuring with their followers.

5. Target - Enticing the early shoppers with in-store shopping videos

The USA-based retail chain, Target, in 2022, aimed to attract early Halloween shoppers by releasing a TikTok campaign in mid-September. The brand partnered with TikTok creator Dalia Elizabeth to create a Halloween shopping video on their channel.

The video featured the influencer shopping for her favorite decor and gifting items for the Halloween season. Since the campaign started in early September, it created immense engagement, encouraging people to share videos of their Halloween product collection from Target. This resulted in tons of quality user-generated content, creating social proof for the brand.

This week's Weekly Shorts is written by the editorial desk of affable.ai