TRICK-OR-TREAT LIKE AN ADULT.
If you’re over 21, then you’re too old to trick-or-treat? We said boo to that & partnered with a seasonal beer to bring the Halloween spirit to adults all over the US.
*THIS IS A SPECULATIVE CAMPAIGN
DEVELOPMENT
Parties, pumpkins, & potions: Tricky Jack in a nutshell. For this campaign, we entertained our collective nostalgia for trick-or-treating, the original Halloween party, & wondered what the adult version of that would be. You’d still have the houses that hand out floss & pretzels, but those full-sized candy bars? That’s Tricky Jack, the perfect mix of bitter & sweet.
21+ Trick-Or-Treating was born, & it included physical pop-ups & a web-exclusive experience.
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The former used billboards, emails, & phone-based geofencing for promotion. Participants would arrive at any one of our 26 pop-up locations, some in street fairs or pumpkin patches, others in standalone storefronts. Pass some Halloween decor & knock on a propped-up doorframe to meet an elderly couple who judges your Halloween spirit. Be good, & you’ll get free beer. Be bad (or forget to wear a costume), & you’ll get a different “treat” - raisins, toothbrushes, & a lot of disappointment.
Rough sketch of the Tricky Jack campaign's visual design.
The latter, the digital experience, uses a laptop’s webcam & microphone to simulate the same thing. Winners get a Tricky Jack discount code in a customized email, with conditional copy based on their CRM status as either a returning or first-time buyer.
With the participants’ consent, we used their recordings & raw reactions in our social strategy, sprinkling video advertisements among our organic posts to drum-up interest in the website.
MESSAGING
TRICK-OR-TREAT LIKE AN ADULT: 21+ partygoers want to relive the joys of trick-or-treating. This campaign highlights candygivers, good & bad, through playful copy, visuals, & experiences that equate scoring full-sized chocolate bars to drinking Tricky Jack Pumpkin Ale.
ASSETS
Tricky Jack is a Halloween brand, but they’re spooky, not scary. More “Witch’s Night Out”, less “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.
BadTyp evokes that sense of trick or treating with a homemade Halloween costume: playful, unpredictable, & a little off-kilter. Antique Olive, the body typeface, carries this energy with enhanced readability, forgoing the variable letters for a little more consistency (like wearing a pre-made costume from one of those big box stores).
Pumpkin ale bottles, jack-o-lanterns, & sheet ghosts demonstrate the whimsical nature of Tricky Jack, forgoing the “look, we’re adult” look so common with beer brands. The virtual trick-or-treating experience, in contrast, used sharp corners to heighten the tension between the user & the elderly couple.
We might have been tried as witches if we didn’t include orange & green in a Halloween campaign. These colors were inspired by neon mid-century masks & spooky memorabilia, with bright borders & a heavy focus on curvilinear lines that carried into our asset design.
CHANNELS
OUTDOOR (BILLBOARD)
DIRECT (EMAIL, TEXT)
GEOFENCING TEXT MESSAGE:
Grown-ups don’t get to trick-or-treat. We changed that.
Stop by Tricky Jack Pumpkin Ale’s 21+ Pop-Up, open Saturday, October 26th to Wednesday, October 30th (5:00pm-10:00pm) at [ADDRESS].
EMAIL TRANSCRIPT:
EMAIL HEADER: We built a Tricky Jack shop in your city. Probably.
EMAIL BODY TEXT: Adults don’t get to trick-or-treat. Tricky Jack changed that.
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Introducing 21+ Trick-Or-Treating, with Tricky Jack pop-ups opening all over the United States. While most of these experiences can be found in your city’s Halloween festivals, some are standalone stores (& significantly cooler).
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Here’s where you can find us in your state:
[MAP OF REGION]
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If you can’t make it this year, we’ve made a webcam version of the same thing. Visit www.21plustrickortreating.com to get your virtual trick-or-treat on.
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A Tip From Tricky Jack: Come dressed in a costume - thank me later.
WEBSITE
WEBCAM/MICROPHONE TRICK-OR-TREAT EXPERIENCE TRANSCRIPT (GOOD ENDING)
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(Ring the doorbell.)
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OLD WOMAN
Coming!
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(Say “trick or treat”.)
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OLD WOMAN
Well, hello there! Now, aren’t you a little old to be trick-or-treating?
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(Convince them.)
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OLD MAN
Fair enough! I mean, we’re all kids at heart, right? Especially on Halloween. Anyway, what are you dressed up as?
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(Tell them your costume.)
OLD WOMAN
Well, I’ve never heard of that before, but you look fantastic!
OLD MAN
Just fantastic!
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OLD WOMAN
I’m saving the candy for the kids - have a Tricky Jack instead! Think of it as…
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OLD MAN:
… the adult version of a full-sized candy bar
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OLD WOMAN
Couldn’t have said it better! Here you go: Happy Halloween!”
EVENT (POP-UP)
"21+ TRICK-OR-TREATING" POP-UP DESCRIPTION:
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EXTERIOR: A rope divides the exterior into two areas - one "in", one "out", each with a respective door. A bouncer checks guests’ IDs at the "in" section to make sure they’re over 21. If they are, then their hand is stamped, & they’re permitted to enter. If their hand has already been stamped, then they are not permitted to re-enter. A large sign will warn guests of consenting to filming by entering the premises.
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INTERIOR: Halloween trees & decor funnel guests into a long line. The decor is spooky, not scary, & looks like a front yard - trees & all. In the middle of the store, two large, wide banners flank a propped-up door, depicting brick walls with a window & creating the front of a cozy Halloween home. At the end of the single-file line, another bouncer keeps traffic flowing & ensures the guests are in range of the cameras & microphones.
Once guests knock on the "front door", an elderly couple opens the door, shares a Halloween greeting, & passes judgement on their costumes. Good outfits (or good excuses) win a free bottle of Tricky Jack on the spot. Bad costumes win a “goodie bag” of floss, raisins, & pretzels with a card that reads: “Try harder next time (Tricky Jack Pumpkin Ale)”
(NOTE: A scaled-down version of this pop-up can be easily installed at adults-only sections of Halloween festivals. Here, IDs have already been checked, so the process can be expedited.)
SOCIALS (VIDEOS)
RESULTS
The following results only include data from the one-month run of the campaign.
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434,257 people collectively visited the 26 pop-up locations. Out of those that responded to a pre- or post-event interview, 19% shared word of mouth as how they heard about the event, with 25% sharing geofencing.
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TikTok followers increased by 264,523. Instagram followers increased by 124,205. Social-driven website traffic increased by 34%, with the purchase event conversion rate of that social-driven cohort 23% higher than the pre-campaign social-driven cohort.
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924,346 people completed the online 21+ Trick-or-Treating experience. 74% of customers consented to have their webcam & microphone recording shared in marketing materials.
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When provided a discounted Tricky Jack 6-pack after completing the online 21+ Trick-or-Treating experience, 56% of people completed a purchase using the coupon code within a week. 12% completed a purchase using the coupon code within a day.
Total revenue increased by 49%.
