Comparing Your Brand To Halloween

© 2013 Bill Barlow

A quick study on how to

build better brands by

modeling them after Halloween

Halloween

Halloween has already gone

into the advocacy stage

Advocacy: Actively supporting, participating or recommending a course of action or activities

Key Elements of the Halloween Brand

5

Involve Children

Anyone who grows up in a brand has a soft place in their heart for the brand forever. Why else does McDonalds focus so much attention on Happy Meals and playgrounds? Kids love them and parents use them and they purchase when they do. When the children grow up, even if they have outgrown the food they want to bring their own kids there to relive their childhood salad (burger) days.

Involve Children

Halloween has done a terrific job by

starting the holiday leveraging children. First they need a costume, and yes a different one every year, then they need a sack, an optional flashlight and they are off to the neighbors houses. The beauty of the next part of the brand involvement is that all of the neighbors need to buy candy and decorate their houses.

Cards Whether you are participating in the Halloween brand in any other way people started sending each other cards to celebrate the brand. How great is a brand when people send each other cards to celebrate it? You may think this is somewhat of a stretch but when a neighbor throws a Tupperware party cards are one of the ways that people use to invite others.

Cards Cards are also the way that the host or hostess uses to thank people for attending.

If you can incorporate cards into your brand, especially if you supply the cards, you are clearly taking your brand to another level.

Costumes If Halloween had a slogan it

would most certainly be “Don’t be Yourself”. The pure

essence of the brand is to become someone or something else for a while. Costumes and dressing up is the center of this

concept. But before you discount how costumes can be part of your brand think about them millions or items of team

and brand clothing that are sold every year.

Even if you just offer brand team hats, you are entering

this playing field. Brand merchandise is advertising but when it is proudly bought and

worn by loyal brand fans it takes on an entirely new

meaning. It means that your brand has entered the highest level of branding that is often

defined as anything from customer loyalty to worship.

Costumes

Decorating

While you are carving your pumpkin and placing those scary ghosts in your yard you should be thinking about how you are going to emulate this practice of decorating into your brand culture. Remember that decorations come in many forms. Be it magnetic signs for your car, wall posters of your mascot or celebrity spokespeople or interactive decorations like the Staples “That Was Easy” button to put on peoples desk.

Decorating

If your audience is loyal and the item is cool or has some interesting meaning, people will decorate for your brand.

Parties

By now you are likely on my wavelength. Halloween is notorious for parties. One

interesting note here is while Halloween was in the early days a holiday that was focused on

children; most Halloween parties today are for adults. When a brand is this much fun why limit it to kids and candy? The obvious brands that have embraced parties are Tupperware, Mary Kay and

nearly every MLM in the world. But who else leverages parties as part of their branding?

Parties

Have you ever been to a wine tasting or a culinary demonstration? These are good

examples. How about a sponsored tailgating event? A playoff event at a sports bar? If you use some imagination you can find numerous ways to incorporate parties into your brand. What a

great way to bond with your fans.

Trick or Treating

You were no doubt waiting for this one. My guess is that Halloween owns this one

exclusively. If you can think of how to use Trick or Treating principles into your branding, I would like to hear from you.

bill@billbarlow.com

Final Thought

Halloween

About Bill Barlow

Bill Barlow is a product and branding guru.

He has mastered the art of blending public relations, direct marketing and social connections into seamless campaigns with ROI. With over $3 billion product sales to his credit, he is apparently doing something right.

Barlow and his team are available to

take your product to the next level.

bill@billbarlow.com www.FamousDiscoveries.com

© 2013 Bill Barlow