Something wicked this way comes. While Halloween is a thrilling time for marketers to get into the spooky spirit of the season to frighten and delight their customers, an ever-lurking fear lies behind every door in branding and marketing departments – how can our marketing stand out while not compromising brand identity? 

Creating a Halloween marketing campaign can feel like walking through a haunted house – you’re excited when you step through the door but constantly waiting for something to jump out at you. In some ways, a brand at Halloween is just like a party costume – you can tell the meticulous planners when people have been busy preparing for weeks or when someone has simply ‘thrown on a cobweb’ to look the part.

In this article, grab a shovel and dig up some insights to consider, as you cast the perfect spell to unleash your teams’ creativity while staying on-brand – and a reminder to give every location the bag of tricks to help support global brand consistency on your next creepy campaign.

The magic spell of brand guidelines 

Any go-to-market campaign hinges on collaboration, especially when seasonal events, such as Halloween, mean getting playful within the limits of your brand guidelines. Your brand must still stay intact, so your in-house design team or external agency need to investigate this mystery with you – and figure out how you can play to your super-strengths.

Achieving synergy across everything that makes up your core brand identity – colours, tone of voice, logos, assets and more – is essential to maintain recognition and increase engagement. Every brand is different, so considering each one of these essential ingredients is key to casting the perfect spell.

Beware of brand colour transformations

Your logo is the most important of your brand assets. It’s the visual cue that sparks instant recognition with your audience, and could be considered the most potent ingredient in your brand identity’s potion to enchant your customers. Misusing or making too many drastic changes might scare away the chance for brand recognition, leaving you haunted by a campaign that didn’t quite create the magical results you were after.

While it can be tempting to change your logo with seasonal imagery and a different colour palette – orange and black being the obvious choice – you need to make sure that it’s suitable for your brand identity and tone of voice. Google, for example, can go ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, and transform with ease. Complementary adjustments can be made to the website logo with significant effect, as it’s actually part of the tech giant’s playful brand identity to change with the seasons – an event in itself.

Meanwhile other brands can protect their frightening strong status as they play with their brand reputation. Marmite, for example, is known for having an acquired taste. The savoury UK food spread, based on its distinctive yeast extract flavour, famously plays with its ‘Love it or hate it’ slogan – making it the perfect ‘Trick or Treat’ product.

Bringing in new colours for its limited edition Halloween packaging, its iconic logo of white letters on red and jar-and-lid’s yellow and black colour scheme offer a playful way to go-to-market during the spooky season.

No matter what you and your creepy and collaborative team decide, make sure everyone working on your brand knows what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Providing essential brand assets to all marketing teams and partners can ensure people are empowered to bring your brand to life in a new way at Halloween – without feeling it’s been put together like Frankenstein’s monster. Create brand consistency all year round and put the picture of your brand together so your teams can animate and activate it everywhere.

Be frighteningly good with your brand’s reputation

Your dream Halloween campaign can be a nightmare if you do not stay on-brand and consistent during your campaigns. In order for the aspects of your brand identity to agree to “stay close and don’t split up” you need to know how customers perceive your brand – carefully selecting the right tone and language for your campaign that compliment your products or services to have a hypnotic effect on your audience. 

Of course, product name changes are all the rage at this time of year. ‘Boo-scotch’ M&M’s. ‘Scream’ Ice Cream from Ben & Jerry. Starbucks’ ‘Frappula Frappuccino’. All delightfully dark, while other wordplay like ‘Trick or treat yourself’ and ‘Fangtastic savings’ are used by many online and high street brands.

Big brands’ marketing departments love to hear screams of delight from their customers at this time of year. So much so, customers can eagerly await to see what new tricks the marketing magicians behind some of the world’s most famous names will do each year – and we are often delighted by the surprises they have in store. 

In fact, some iconic brands use minimal wordplay as they really know how to use the right imagery to awaken the spirit of their product:

It’s clear when brands have considered all aspects of their brand identity to deliver amazing assets at Halloween. Whatever’s being cooked up in the creative cauldron, make sure all digital assets are in one place – so every team can take away the breath of their audience. 

Avoid facing a cultural nuance nightmare

Each region your brand operates in may do Halloween differently. With Halloween culture, stories and themes must speak to local tastes. While one nation may embrace particular Hollywood horror characters, others may conjure up more of a witchcraft and wizardry atmosphere.

Of course, it’s important to be aware which countries do something different to Halloween too and to not assume your global creative ideas will work everywhere. For example, in Latin America, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a celebration of life and death and not a cultural ‘version’ of Halloween – besides, they are celebrated on different days, with the region seeing Halloween as more for children than the wider culture. It matters to make sure you know your audience and prepare your teams to speak to them seasonally in their own way.

Fanta Misterio was a bewitching blend from Coca Cola that managed to walk between the two worlds in the runup to both celebrations. Playing on words like ‘fantasma’ – the word for ‘ghost’ in Spanish – shows the wisdom of the Fanta brand to balance global identity with regional resonance, to enchant audiences with spooky puns wherever they are.

Your global campaign must be able to speak to its audience locally, or teams must create different campaigns that appeal to the nuances (and nightmares) of their neighbourhood.

Empowering teams to create unlimited customisable assets in their own language, or adding specific elements only locals would appreciate, can mean everyone can get some sleep knowing the brand is safe and sound. Not having such solutions, and leaving teams to use free online tools that won’t align marketing materials to brand guidelines, could be the thing that goes bump in your bottom line.

Let brand consistency lift your spirits

While crafting Halloween marketing materials may seem like a terrifying task, remember that having a smart creative team, with tools at your disposal to make sure the horror of diluting your brand never sees the light of day, can make this a frighteningly fun time of year for marketing teams and customers.

If you’ve been haunted by the realisation that you weren’t fully prepared this year, see how our brand management platform can empower your team to efficiently activate your brand in every location, and for every seasonal event – so get set for a fiendishly delightful Halloween, year after year.

These days most people know what a brand is. Or they think they do. People globally recognise the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle, the phrase ‘I’m loving it’, or the Nike Swoosh.

But as all marketers know, brand goes far deeper than a logo or image and in this article we will explore exactly how to create brand consistency, which in turn will help to foster an on-brand culture. We will also look at why this is so important, how you can use brand management software to achieve brand compliance, and the risks if you don’t get your brand culture on point. 

What’s in a brand? 

The logo is just the start – any company needs a clear set of brand guidelines covering everything from use of images to tone of voice and as marketers you will know that there is a lot of detail needed in between — you will need clear direction on how to present dates and numbers, logo placement, use of punctuation, and more.

When you have effective brand guidelines and brand assets — including campaign information and design templates – the marketing team will know exactly how to use words and imagery to communicate your brand consistently and to convey the right look and feel.  

Why is brand consistency important? 

In today’s competitive business landscape, establishing a strong brand identity has become more crucial than ever before. With countless options available to consumers and rapidly evolving market trends, companies need to find ways to stand out from the crowd and make a lasting impression. One key strategy you can’t ignore is by being on-brand – at every touchpoint.

When your brand elements, such as your logo, colour palette, and typography, are consistently applied across all platforms, your audience can quickly identify and distinguish your business from others. This recognition fosters trust and familiarity, making customers more likely to choose your brand over competitors. 

And, when you are maintaining brand consistency across all elements — from visuals to messaging — this can significantly impact your business’ success and help you build a loyal customer base. What’s more, being on-brand helps showcase your unique selling proposition which enables you to differentiate yourself from similar businesses.  

Ultimately, a strong brand identity sets you apart and gives potential customers a reason to choose you over other options. Just make sure you have software that ensures your people actually implement the brand guidelines you worked so hard to establish.

Being on-brand creates customer loyalty 

When customers encounter a brand that delivers a consistent experience, it creates a sense of reliability, dependability and trust. They come to expect a certain level of quality and value, which helps build a strong reputation for your business. 

Without this, your company will not come across as professional and credible. It’s that familiarity which brings reassurance to the customer that your company will deliver on its promise, regardless of the product or service you offer. You need every image to be precise and the tone accurate, otherwise your customers will find your competitors more attractive.  

The benefits of a deeper connection 

When your brand consistently communicates its values, personality, and purpose, it creates an emotional resonance with your target market. By tapping into their aspirations, desires, or pain points, you can forge a deep connection that goes beyond transactional relationships. 

When customers feel emotionally connected to your brand, they are more likely to become loyal advocates. They become brand ambassadors, sharing their positive experiences with others and fostering word-of-mouth marketing. Consistency in your branding ensures that these advocates have a clear and compelling message to convey, further strengthening brand loyalty — whether they engage with your brand online, visit your physical store, or interact with your social media accounts, they should feel like they are part of a unified brand ecosystem. This consistency not only enhances customer satisfaction but also fosters positive associations with your brand. 

Connecting with staff as part of an on-brand culture 

An on-brand culture goes beyond look and feel and is not just about your customers. It’s about values and this ties into how your employees feel, about what makes your staff, and therefore your company, tick. Think of the brand guidelines – the imagery and tone – as the skin of the company, whilst the culture is the heart. You want everyone to embody the same positive attitude, so ask yourself what it is that has drawn your employees to working for you? What values and beliefs are we tapping into, and what’s your ethos? 

It’s all about employee engagement. Modern working culture frequently sees staff look for a company perspective on diversity (particularly Gen Z) and sustainability, rather than simply the product or service you offer – they want something that chimes with their value system. 

This links to your Employee Value Proposition as employees, and your audience, will be looking at what sets you apart from your competitors, when considering working for, or leaving your company. The danger here is that they may find your competitors more attractive as without a consistent brand and an on-brand culture you will not achieve salience.

Plus, you want them to become brand ambassadors and promote your company favourably and consistently too. All of this is part of a strong employer branding strategy, and a brand management software should support your teams to help you become an employer of choice for the best talent.

Going global while staying local 

Last but by no means least, you need to consider the international nuances for your brand, both in terms of look and feel but also tone and language. This is where you need some expert translation to ensure that your message lands well with your audience, wherever they are internationally, and always remains on-brand.

You will want to ensure that you respect and acknowledge the differences between global and local audiences, whilst still communicating the core brand identity across cultural, regional, and local nuances and languages.

If you want to build an on-brand culture across your enterprise, a brand management platform provides a foundation for your teams worldwide. As part of the Papirfly Platform, you can create this foundation as you educate your people and maintain control. Your brand portal solution is Point, as the starting point of our full suite of products which includes a DAM to manage and access all your brand assets – plus on-brand templating to enable you to achieve brand consistency in all asset creation, salience and in turn, a global on-brand culture.