Our Top 3 Halloween-Themed Promotions of 2011

Every business engages with Halloween in their own way. Some places dress up, some write relentlessly on the topic for an entire week, and some actually use the holiday to promote themselves. Thanks to social networking keeping us all in the loop online, a lot of businesses have found it incredibly easy to connect with their customers at a much more personal level by simultaneously celebrating Halloween with their customer base and promoting their brand. It seems like the amount of promotions that come up grows every year, but here are our top three Halloween related promotions for 2011:

Dunkin Donuts: Pumpkin Carving Contest

Chances are you carved a pumpkin this year, but it is fairly unlikely that this carving was in any way related to the Coffee/Donuts giant Dunkin Donuts. It’s too bad though because, if you did carve a donut or coffee related masterpiece, you could have won a free fifty dollar giftcard.

That’s a lot of treats!

Dunkin Donuts primarily ran their campaign via Twitter, using the social media tool in the exact way companies should; to engage directly with their customers at a level never before dreamed of. Of course they paired this campaign with their usual lineup of orange iced donuts and aptly named desserts – the Boston Scream remains one of our personal favorites. But it is great to see such a large company taking a step beyond giving their products funny names. They’ve been running this particular promotion since the 20th, and are just now beginning to announce the winners. Even if you did not enter, you can still see the cool designs that came out of this contest by checking out their Twitter.

Games, Games, Games Galore!

This has more to do with a sector than an actual company, but who said we have to play by the rules. Video game companies are becoming increasingly embroiled in a competitive fight to determine which online game delivery software will win out. Steam already has quite the lead, but EA has been pushing its Origin service, and independent companies like Direct2Drive have been trying to keep up with distribution rights slowly shriveling up.

It seems like a lot of these services are trying to get a leg into the holiday shopping season by promoting Halloween-themed games specifically through their distribution channel. Direct2Drive is apparently trying to help you with your costume ideas by offering a mix of frightening games along with some of their best sellers. Steam meanwhile is offering quite a few more Zombie/Vampire/Ghost/Thriller games in their own “scary sale.” Origin… well, Origin isn’t doing much, which may be a good thing considering all of the customer service horror stories being told about it, but EA mobile is having its own Halloween sale for those of you who like a nice game of Plants vs Zombies with your coffee.

Free Brains from Jell-O

Jell-O has never been one of the biggest sellers during Halloween, except for twenty-somethings looking to incorporate a few spirits of their own into the dessert. But in an attempt to generate more family oriented sales, Kraft held a promotion for its Jell-O brand by offering free brain molds and cookbooks for the aspiring zombie chef.

It’s a really cute idea and was a great example of a major corporation moving to social media and establishing an online presence to promote their molds. Instead of opting into expensive television and radio campaigns, they used their Facebook, Twitter and blogging partners to direct traffic to their Jell-O Mold shop where, if you had the code, you could get yourself a free little plastic brain. As of a few days ago, reports were that 33,000 of these molds had been ordered, which means Kraft can expect a slight increase in the amount of Jell-O bought as well.

That isn’t too say that all of these molds will be used to create innocent, spirit-free treats, but Kraft operated amazingly within their consumer confines and pulled off an excellent campaign.

So there you have it, our most noteworthy campaigns to come out of the 2011 Halloween season.

Last but not least, MyCorporation would also like to wish all of our readers, affiliates, and customers a happy, and safe, Halloween!