31.10.2026 · after dark
20 campaigns
that weren’t afraid of Halloween
Journal · Creative ·
Halloween 2026. 20 brand campaigns and ideas worth seeing
KFC, Fanta, MINI, McDonald’s, Pringles and more. Creativity, humour and a few ideas that are hard to forget.
Halloween marketing is simple until you start thinking about it.
In the easiest version, you turn the logo black, add a pumpkin, a little cobweb and you’re done. The brand has ticked the holiday off its list. The problem is that dozens of other companies do exactly the same thing. After a few hours, all those ads look like one and the same.
In 2026, some brands took a different route. KFC made a monster out of chicken bones. Nespresso hid a skull in coffee. Pringles offered a fan an urn shaped like its tube. And Aldi created… parking for broomsticks.
Below, I’ve gathered 20 examples from different countries. There are big campaigns, simple Instagram visuals, limited-edition products and outdoor ideas. This is not a ranking of sales results, because we simply don’t have those figures. What interests me is something else: how brands used Halloween to say something about themselves, rather than just remind us that Halloween falls on 31 October.
Kamil Ryszard · Czytaj po polsku
01
KFCA monster made from what was left after lunch
An eaten chicken, a few bones and a black background. It doesn’t take much to create an ad that looks like a horror poster. KFC arranged chicken leftovers into eerie faces and hands. Only after a moment does the viewer realise they’re looking at something that usually ends up in the bin.
The line “It’s Bone-Lickin’ Good” completes the idea. One word replaces “Finger” in the iconic “Finger Lickin’ Good”, while the brand’s meaning stays intact. The series has three executions: “Hands”, “Face” and “Boo”. It’s a great example of using Halloween without abandoning the product or its communication heritage.
Creative: Mass Digital / Mass McCann Colombia; CCO Alejandro Barrera, ECD David Patiño, creative directors Anderson Quiroga and Miguel Van Bommel. Market: Chile.
Source: The Best of Ads02
Monster MunchAn investigation at the crime scene
Monster Munch has an advantage other snack brands might envy: its snacks already look like ghosts. The French campaign turned them into the victims of mysterious crimes. The posters show remnants of “bodies”, traces of seasoning and scenes straight out of a crime series.
Each of the four scenes represents a different flavour: ketchup, cheddar, sour cream and onion, and spicy BBQ. From 28 October, the posters appeared on 2 and 8 m² displays and the backs of buses. An interesting detail: this was Monster Munch’s first nationwide outdoor campaign in France built specifically around Halloween. Product, occasion and humour came together perfectly.
Agency: Change. Creative director: Damien Guiol; art direction: Hugo Venutier; copywriting: Charles Barraud; production: Studio Illusions.
Source: La Réclame / Change03
NespressoThe skull that appears in your coffee
Condensation settles on the glass, milk mixes with espresso and suddenly a skull begins to emerge from the pale streaks. Nespresso created an ad in which the scary element wasn’t pasted onto the product. It was made from the product itself.
The French execution “Frissons Garantis” appeared on 31 October for just one day. Publicis Conseil and the brand used around 4,000 screens in the Mediatransports network, with particular emphasis on Paris’s Opéra station. A one-day run makes sense: Halloween is a holiday you can win with one very good image rather than a long campaign. This is a refined example of an optical surprise.
Agency: Publicis Conseil. Creative Director: Alessandro Padalino; Art Director: Nicolas Vidolov; Copywriter: Théo Castagné.
Source: Publicis Groupe France, 30 October 202604
MorrisonsMonsters from the vegetable aisle
You usually need a makeup artist to create convincing Halloween monsters. Morrisons only needed vegetables. Avocados become a pair of eyes, carrots become zombie hands and a red pepper becomes a screaming face. Everything is photographed like a simple still life.
The best detail? The yellow price labels. The retailer didn’t sacrifice product value information to make the creative look artistic. Even the terrifying pepper still cost 70p. “Market Street Monsters” reminds us that an idea can entertain, build a brand and communicate prices at the same time. Advertising is supposed to sell, not just make it into roundups.
Agency: Leo UK; creative director: Kimberley Gill; creative: Rupert Knowlden; photography: Myles New; production: Publicis Production; media: Zenith UK.
Source: Creative Salon, 26 October 202605
AIWANoise cancellation can be dangerously good
For years, headphone manufacturers have told us that shutting out surrounding sounds is a benefit. AIWA reversed that argument. In the “Risky Halloween” series, it imagines what would happen if you really couldn’t hear anything, not even a monster standing behind you.
The ad has a simple mechanism: it takes a genuine product promise and shows its absurd, cinematic cost. In advertising, this is called reversing the benefit. What I like most here is the discipline. You don’t need to get into headphone specifications to understand what the brand is selling.
Agency: Bright, Peru. “Risky Halloween” campaign, trade publication Ads of the World.
Source: Ads of the World, campaigns from Peru06
McDonald’s in the UKSauces for your face, not your fries
Ketchup, curry, barbecue. At McDonald’s, these are accompaniments to food. In “Spooky Sauces”, they become a palette for Halloween makeup. What’s more, the kit came with brushes resembling fries and a sponge modelled on a nugget. The whole thing looks like a real, if completely absurd, cosmetics kit.
This campaign wasn’t only about a visual. The brand gave away 100 kits in a competition, and creators used them to make looks inspired by the menu. That’s an important difference. The promotional product became a tool for audiences to create more material. In other words, the brand didn’t have to produce all the Halloween content itself.
Agency: Leo UK; creative director: Ben Hooper; creative: Sophia Tassew, Hannah Lacey and George Denney; photography/direction: Yiani Andrikidis.
Source: Creative Salon, October 202607
McDonald’s in PolandHalloween designed to land in the basket
The Polish Halloween execution was much more product-focused. McDonald’s introduced the limited-edition McCrispy Halloween with Spooky Tomato sauce, cheddar, bacon, lettuce and fried onions. The ads featured a sinister hand, and the product’s seasonal character was apparent at first glance.
But there’s a more interesting detail than the burger itself: the Double version, with a double portion of chicken, was available exclusively through the app. Seasonal product interest was therefore linked to an incentive to use the brand’s own ordering channel. Not every Halloween campaign has to go viral. Some simply need to encourage a specific purchase.
Strategy and execution: TBWA Warsaw; media: OMD; social media and technology: Dentsu Creative; PR and influencer marketing: 24/7 Communication.
Source: McDonald’s Poland, 14 October 202608
FantaA brand builds its own horror universe
Fanta has got along well with Halloween for years, but in 2026 it went a step further. Instead of another can featuring a scary character, it created “Haunted Universe”, its own universe with characters, stories and collectible packaging. Ghost Face, known from the Scream series, also joined Fanta’s world.
Why is this interesting from a business perspective? Because Halloween stops being a one-off activation at the end of October. With your own characters, you can return next year, create more products, collaborations and content. Speaking to Marketing Dive, a Fanta representative compared the brand’s ambition to the way Coca-Cola has claimed Christmas. Fundamentally, this is not an advertising idea but an annual brand asset.
Campaign: WPP Open X led by Ogilvy; contributions from VML, WPP Media, WPP Production, ForPeople and studio GRAiL.
Source: Coca-Cola Company, 26 August 202609
PringlesAn ashes urn for the ultimate fan
I don’t know if you can be more loyal to a crisp brand than asking for your ashes to be placed in its packaging after you die. Pringles took that idea literally. In “Once You Drop”, fans could win a metal urn shaped like its distinctive tube and $28,080, which the brand said was equivalent to one tube a week for 200 years.
This isn’t just a provocative joke. Fredric Baur, a co-creator of the Pringles packaging, genuinely wanted some of his ashes buried in a tube. His family fulfilled that wish after his death in 2008. Stories like this are advertising gold. Another brand could copy the dark humour, but it can’t copy Pringles’ own legend.
Creative and communications: BBDO New York and Weber Shandwick.
Source: NowyMarketing, 202610
KFC × CheetosThe ad that changes after sunset
This is one of the most interesting outdoor executions of this year’s Halloween. Posters promoting a joint KFC and Cheetos Pandilla menu appeared in Spain. By day, they were ordinary food ads. At night, special print layers and backlighting revealed glowing ghosts and bats on the displays.
Jungle PS21 developed the idea, Amvia handled the printing effect and Arena Media planned the outdoor placement. The campaign ran in more than 100 locations, including Madrid, Málaga and Valencia. The best part is that the change didn’t require a digital screen. The time of day itself became part of the idea. This is an ad you can’t judge solely from a static creative file.
Creative agency: Jungle PS21; production technology: Amvia; OOH strategy and activation: Arena Media.
Source: MarketingNews, 29 October 202611
MINIAn iconic horror film, starring a car
You don’t even have to read the copy to understand these visuals. Two MINIs placed in a hotel corridor evoke the twins from The Shining. Other visuals reference images familiar from other horror films. The brand replaces the characters in popular frames with its own cars and lets viewers finish the joke.
This mechanism relies on cultural recognition. If you know the film, you make the connection yourself. If you don’t, you still see an unusual composition. In advertising practice, ideas like this are easy to overuse, so it’s worth appreciating that the car remains an integral part of every scene, rather than simply a logo added below a poster.
Published by MINI France. Public sources do not provide reliable full agency and team credits for this series.
Source: Creapills, Halloween 2026 campaign roundup12
ContinentalHalloween in the tyre grooves
What would be a technical detail in an ordinary tyre ad becomes a monster’s face in Continental’s Halloween series. Glowing pumpkins, cobwebs and terrifying smiles appear in the tread. The dark background and orange light create atmosphere, but your eye keeps returning to the tyre.
This execution stands on one principle: if you need to show a product, don’t hide it under decoration. Here, the product literally creates the decoration. You don’t have to guess the ad’s category, and each of the three images develops the same idea. It’s also worth noting that this is a series of social posts, not a nationwide advertising campaign.
Published by Continental France. No confirmed agency or creator credits were found for this series.
Source: Creapills, Halloween 2026 campaign roundup13
RitualsGhosts can be minimalist too
Not every brand needs blood, cobwebs and shouting headlines. Rituals approached Halloween in its own way. Products became ghosts under fabric, foam took on an eerie character and light brought out mysterious shadows. Despite the seasonal joke, the work still looks like a Rituals ad.
That may seem like a small thing, but it matters for brands with a clearly defined aesthetic. Joining a trend shouldn’t require a personality change. Rituals doesn’t pretend to be a horror brand. It invites horror into its world for a moment. And that keeps the joke from overshadowing the product.
Published by Rituals Cosmetics. No confirmed agency authorship for these specific visuals.
Source: Creapills, Halloween 2026 campaign roundup14
PantoneHalloween has its own colour code
Three stripes: white, orange and yellow. For Americans, they immediately evoke candy corn, one of Halloween’s most distinctive sweets. Pantone paired them with its colour swatches and built a series of posts that barely need a line of copy.
One glance is enough to get the joke. And because candy corn is a product that clearly divides people, there’s a natural reason to comment too. In this case, brand identity isn’t an addition to the message. It is the message. It’s hard to imagine a company that could claim the same idea as naturally.
Published by Pantone. The creators of individual executions have not been publicly named.
Source: Marketing-Interactive, 30 October 202615
IKEAGhosting, but with a shopping list
A ghost in a sheet appears in a bedroom display. Instead of scaring people, it jokes about ghosting, the abrupt cutting off of contact familiar from dating. IKEA suggests you can ignore your ex, but not necessarily your own shopping list.
The starting point for this ad comes from outside the furniture category. The brand borrows a word from internet language and gives it a literal Halloween meaning. That turns an ordinary store scene into a joke. However, we don’t know the creators’ full credits, so assigning this execution to a particular agency would be guesswork.
Published by IKEA Switzerland. No confirmed information about the creative agency.
Source: Creapills, Halloween 2026 campaign roundup16
KitKatHorror that tastes like coriander
The visual shows a KitKat wrapper with a green, coriander-flavoured bar. It looks surprisingly plausible, especially since confectionery brands regularly experiment with odd flavours. But this time, it isn’t a real launch. It’s a Halloween joke.
Why does it work? Because coriander is one of those flavours people easily argue about. Some love it; others can’t stand it. The idea of the bar itself provides a ready-made question for the comments: would you try it? And the brand doesn’t need a scary character. Fear is replaced by the prospect of eating something that provokes extreme reactions.
Published by KitKat. Conceptual creative work, not a confirmed product available for sale; agency credits not established.
Source: Creapills, Halloween 2026 campaign roundup17
DoritosTwo skeletons and one simple question
There’s no elaborate copywriting, celebrity or complicated production. Just two skeletons, bags of Doritos and the caption “Me and who?”. It’s a familiar internet format, usually sent to someone we’d like to do something with. Doritos simply adapted it to Halloween.
And that’s exactly why this visual is interesting. On social media, the audience doesn’t have to like it for its artistic craftsmanship. It’s enough for them to immediately think of a specific person. A good sharing mechanism can matter more than the most polished illustration. That doesn’t mean we know the post’s actual results, of course. We’re talking about the construction of the idea, not confirmed reach.
Published by Doritos. The creative team behind this individual execution has not been established.
Source: Marketing-Interactive, 30 October 202618
AldiParking for witches, taken seriously
A parking space for broomsticks appeared at an Aldi store in York, UK. There was a special rack, signage and an absurdly serious presentation. The brand treated travelling by broom as if it were an ordinary logistical problem for customers.
The activation launched on 22 October and ran until Halloween. But the most interesting thing isn’t the photo itself. It’s an installation that gives people a reason to stop, take a picture and tell their friends. Instead of asking people to share an ad, Aldi created an object that practically asks to be shared. A small piece of car park became a communication medium.
Brand: Aldi UK. Location: Water Lane, York. Primary source: the retailer’s official announcement.
Source: Aldi UK, 22 October 202619
adidas × SnickersA chocolate boot for the field
A chocolate bar brand and a sports equipment manufacturer together? An odd pairing in theory. In practice, adidas and Snickers unveiled limited-edition ADIZERO ELECTRIC + II American football cleats in chocolate-associated browns. Inside was a green insole referencing the Halloween Snickers Ghoulish Green variant.
The collaboration also had its own chocolate bars and competitions for fans. The shoes went on sale in the United States on 10 October for $180, with football player Carnell Tate invited to promote them. Here, Halloween is a reason to enter the world of sport and streetwear, rather than just a visual featuring a pumpkin.
Collaboration: adidas and Mars Snacking / Snickers. The official announcement did not name a creative agency.
Source: Mars Incorporated, 29 September 202620
McDonald’sThe world’s simplest broom
A broom stands against a red background, but it isn’t made of twigs. Someone has tied together McDonald’s fries. Beside it are the golden arches and virtually nothing else. This image has one advantage over many more complicated campaigns: the product and the Halloween symbol are exactly the same object.
This is a small visual post, not a confirmed major advertising campaign. We don’t know the full production credits or measurable effects. But it’s worth showing for a different reason. It reminds us that an idea sometimes requires no technology, film licence or new packaging. You just need to look at the product as material for building something else.
Published on a regional McDonald’s profile in the US; agency authorship unconfirmed.
Source: Creapills, Halloween 2026 campaign roundupWhat do the best Halloween 2026 campaigns have in common?
Looking at these 20 examples, I see three different routes to a good idea. The first is transforming the product: KFC turns bones into monsters, Morrisons turns vegetables into faces, and McDonald’s turns fries into a broom. The second is using something the brand already has: Pringles its own history, Pantone its colours, MINI its recognisable car silhouette. The third is changing the surroundings or the audience’s behaviour. Aldi installs a broom rack, KFC and Cheetos use nightfall, and Doritos creates an image you immediately want to send to someone.
In none of these cases would “let’s do something for Halloween” have been enough. The creators first had to find a feature of the product, brand or medium they could play with. And that, to me, is the most valuable lesson from this year’s campaigns.
You don’t have to look like Halloween. It’s better to make Halloween look like your brand, just for a moment.
Materials and sources
Each campaign includes links to the original publications, credits and visual materials. Some of the examples discussed are individual brand posts rather than full advertising campaigns. Where authorship has not been publicly confirmed, no agency has been credited.
Creative work and trademarks belong to their respective owners. Sources for visual materials and authorship are listed alongside each example.