Nostalgia Drives Halloween as Brands Revive Classic Ads

A 30-second Geico ad called “Horror Movie” needed to look like the real Hollywood slasher franchises it was parodying, with attractive stars, desolate setting, high stakes, and slick production values.

And its villain—a prototypical axe murderer—had to speak volumes without a single word of dialogue.

It wasn’t until the final moments of filming—and the last take—that creatives at The Martin Agency and director Wayne McClammy had finally captured what they wanted, according to Ken Marcus, senior writer, vice president, and associate creative director.

“We shot all night,” said Marcus, an architect of the spot, part of the long running “It’s What You Do” campaign. “The sun was about to come up, which would’ve ruined it.”

But the persistence paid off—when “Horror Movie” debuted at Halloween 2014, it became an instant classic and a fan favorite, so popular that it aired during subsequent spooky seasons. 

The spot has returned for a 10th anniversary run this month on well-watched programming like MLB tournament games and Amazon’s Thursday Night Football.

“There were so many escalations and beats cooked into this 30 seconds, and every detail mattered,” Sean Riley, creative director, told ADWEEK. “Getting those right made all the difference between a forgettable ad and one that landed the joke.” 

By resurrecting a well-loved spot, Geico joins a wave of brands mining their own vaults for commercial gold and drawing on well-known pop culture tropes for Halloween campaigns. 

Reese’s has reanimated its shimmying skeletons, and meat and cheese purveyor Dietz & Watson has breathed new life into its Gabaghoul wiseguy. Snyder’s of Hanover creates its own urban legend, with shades of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in a spot dubbed “Pretzelface.”

And Mars has debuted new work, but it marries two of its legacy brands and beloved long-running characters for the first time. The spot, called “Unexpected Guests,” feeds Snickers bars to the anthropomorphic M&M’s spokescandies to help them think on their feet. 

Treasure trove

The message of the callbacks is clear: Nostalgia still sells, and it’s as hot as ever in adland. And because the industry continues to trot out past winners, expect to see more familiar ads during the upcoming end-of-year holiday rush. 

Reese’s “Skeleton Dance” is the best-performing spot of the Halloween season so far, per research from System1, which found that it helped “break away from typical product-focused ads, proving the power of consistency and distinctive brand assets.”

Culling the archives is smart marketing, especially in the current belt-tightening environment, the researcher said.

“Re-running successful ads allows brands to allocate more budget toward media spend rather than production costs,” Vanessa Chin, System1’s senior vice president of marketing, told ADWEEK. Such ads “can create a strong emotional bond with consumers, making them more likely to engage” while reinforcing brand identity and trust.

It may be impossible to predict a hit, but once consumers latch onto a piece of work, “it’s already validated,” Marcus said, “which gives you a blanket of comfort.”

With major fourth-quarter holidays on the horizon, brands may follow suit, with Chin noting that “ads do not wear out as quickly as marketers may think.”

Spending sweet spot

With a few weeks to go until Halloween, inflation is expected to take a toll on consumer spending, while shrinkflation could mean trick-or-treating kids need to add more houses to their route to end up with the same haul (in ounces and pounds) as in previous years.

Candy shoppers tend to wait until the last minute—with sales spiking shortly before the holiday and peaking the day-of—though 37% of consumers say they may cut back on sweets spending this year, per an 84.51º study.

Overall consumers are expected to shell out $11.6 billion on the holiday, slightly less than 2023’s record-smashing $12.2 billion.

Shoppers plan to celebrate the holiday by decorating their houses (53%), carving pumpkins (48%), and staying home to greet trick or treaters (43%), per 84.51º research. Buying will happen mostly IRL at grocery (62%), mass (43%) and club stores (23%).

TV mafiosos, twerking zombies

Dietz & Watson, a Philadelphia-based deli brand, has revived the Gabaghoul, first seen in 2021 with actor Vincent Pastor in the role. Fellow “made man” from the Sopranos, Steve Schirripa, steps into the role this year with four lightly creepy and heavily accented spots from longtime agency partner Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners.

The gig was “too big for just one actor” and has elicited “so much brand love” that it made sense to awaken him, according to Steve Red, the Mod Op agency’s president and co-chief creative officer.

The campaign is part of Dietz’s commitment to “bring the nostalgia of our products to consumers year round,” per executive vice president of brand strategy Lauren Eni Canseco.

Food giant Mars recently launched a trio of spots, with the charming M&Ms characters naively making the door-to-door rounds on Halloween. They don’t seem to realize they could be accosted by young hooligans on a sugar high, one neighbor tells them. Maybe eating a Snickers bar will help them make smarter choices, per the brand’s ongoing message.

The work, from agency BBDO, also includes videos based on sight gags and poor planning around oversized Halloween decorations. A massive skeleton figure meant for the outdoors wreaks havoc in a living room, and an animatronic zombie twerks suggestively after a shoddy assembly.

Calling to mind a famously terrifying film series, Snyder’s of Hanover has unleashed Pretzelface on an unsuspecting public. The character, meant as a playful take on Halloween folklore, comes from agency partner Leo Burnett.

Pretzelface wields a meat cleaver and stalks through a darkened house, but don’t fret, he’s actually harmless. And he’s a skilled baker—his googly-eyed, candy-pretzel combos, fresh out of the oven, give the ad a sweet twist ending.