Eight brands scaring your pants off this Halloween

Better lock the doors, turn off all the lights and cling to your favourite comfort blanket, Halloween is getting closer.

Whether on video, social, or just giving their website a spooky little makeover, brands are doing some fittingly disturbing things this year.

Here’s a round-up of some of my favourites.

Ikea

Ikea Singapore launched this intense and lovingly recreated homage to The Shining a few days ago. Its primary intention is to highlight its late night opening hours.

You may want to leave before the snow gets too heavy and you’re forced to spend the night running away from a caretaker who needs to ‘correct’ you.

WENDY!!! WENDY!!!

LEGO

LEGO has launched a ‘spookify your LEGO sets’ contest on its website.

Builders can upload their own creations and have them featured throughout the month.

If you can do better than putting a wizard on spaceship you might be in with a fair shout.

Geico

Geico’s skewering of horror movie tropes ties in nicely to its general message “it’s what you do”.

Although the deadpan spoofing and high quality production values are very similar to this excellent short film from last year.

The Evil Within

With the release of its latest survival horror game across various next generation consoles, Bethesda gave its Facebook fans the chance to vote for their favourite alternate cover which will feature on the reverse of the sleeve.

It’s interesting that Bethesda has listened to the genre’s fans and realised that there’s a desire for alternate, more interesting covers (“the other country usually has the better cover”) and has given the choice to its followers.

I vote the eyeball one.

Ouija

Horror movie marketing at the moment follows a very similar prankvertising model as previous viral hits Carrie and Devil’s Due… Scare some innocent people on a hidden camera, achieve millions of views on YouTube with the non-branded footage, forget what the film is called a month later.

This year’s Ouija breaks the above mould slightly by not being as popular.

Oreo

Paranormal snacktivity from everyone’s favourite biscuity agile-marketers. (Click below to play the video)

The Babadook

Released in the UK just in time for Halloween is the Australian horror film The Babadook. Even the trailer is a singularly terrifying experience.

As you can see from the above, if you dared to watch it, the plot revolves around a seemingly haunted pop-up storybook. The book doesn’t exist in the real world… yet.

Yes, you can will the evil tome into life by signing up to this crowdfunding initiative. You sicko…