Casting Spells 101: How to Activate Consumers Around Halloween

How engagement mechanics let marketers launch a Halloween activation in under 10 days, and how to fold them into your holiday marketing strategy.

It's already spooky season, which means marketers have a real opportunity to harness Halloween to engage and activate consumers. The window for Halloween promotions is small, so being strategic about execution matters. Traditional advertising and marketing channels often need months of prep to pull off the campaign you want. But engagement mechanics let marketers launch a digital activation in under 10 days. Just using your social channels, you can drive traffic to the activation quickly, and on a modest budget. (Feel free to promote the activation however you like, this is just one quick way to get it off the ground.)

You're probably wondering: what are engagement mechanics, and how do they fit into a Halloween social and digital marketing strategy? Good question.

Let's explore what engagement mechanics are, and how to work them into your Halloween marketing strategy.

What are Engagement Mechanics?

Engagement mechanics leverage gamification and digital technology to engage audiences. By personalizing engagements, brands and agencies can create uniquely branded content that resonates with their target consumers across any device. These mechanics include the ability to invite consumers to shake, flick, swipe, watch, tap, and more to hook them into your brand conversation (as shown below). For examples of how brands are using engagement mechanics, read “5 Inspiring Ways to Use Gamification in Your Marketing“.

How to Activate Around Halloween with Engagement Mechanics

We recently helped Crispy Minis on their #Flavorbomb program. It invited consumers to add a flavourful frame to a selfie, for the chance to win a $10,000 travel voucher. Crispy Minis promoted the campaign via social media channels such as Twitter and Instagram. The branded mechanic encouraged thousands of consumers to upload their photo to the contest website. The campaign successfully earned 20,804 user-generated entries, and created brand awareness around Crispy Minis’ flavour profiles.

By using a similar strategy, it’s possible for brands to create engaging content and activate consumers around Halloween. Our photo engagement mechanic allows brands and agencies to customize frames to match their marketing, and reskin it at any time (Christmas is just around the corner, too). Then by utilizing marketing channels like social media, invite consumers to dress up in their costume and take a selfie, uh, spooky, for the chance to win a prize. The incentivize you choose is up to you, but here are some tips on how to pick the perfect prizing.

White Paper: 2018 Consumer Engagement Trends Report

In this age of digital transformation, businesses need to take creative risks when it comes to their engagement strategy. Explore the top 10 marketing trends that are disrupting the way we engage consumers in 2018 and beyond.

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