Colenso BBDO

Client: Mars
Product: M&Ms
Title: Haunted M&Ms
Media: Digital, Branded Content
Country: New Zealand
Date Of Campaign: October 2017

Background: Halloween is the biggest night of the year for candy brands. We were tasked with making M&M’S the candy of Halloween, in a way that let the whole country join the fun.

Idea: We didn’t change our product in any way, we just gave it a fright, by locking it inside New Zealand’s most haunted house for 13 days to fill it with ghosts for the holiday season. We broadcast the haunting live in the longest ever Facebook live feed, working with Facebook to circumvent their stringent 4-hour maximum live broadcast length to break their previous record by 12.2 days. We linked the feed to our Shopify page, so Halloweeners could have the candy shipped anywhere in the country with a single click. Boxes were sold in 3 levels of hauntedness: Lightly Haunted, Mediumly Spooked, or Extra Super Creepy depending on where they were placed in the house. The campaign ran from October 13 - 31st, 2017, and was targeted at the growing number of Halloween lovers all around New Zealand.

Results: The campaign generated 1.1M Facebook interactions, reached a quarter of the nation, increased sales by 85.3% on the previous year, and made M&M’S the #1 most talked about candy of Halloween.