Brief:

• Candy maker Ferrero plans to celebrate Halloween with a month-long campaign that includes shoppable pins on Pinterest, digital advertising and influencer posts. The "31 Days of Halloween" celebration will last throughout October, per an announcement.
• The shoppable pins let Pinterest users order Ferrero's brands including Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Crunch, Fannie May, Kinder, Nutella and Tic Tac. The confectioner and influencer partners also will share ideas on Pinterest of how to celebrate Halloween.
• The campaign is based on research showing Halloween remains important to parents even as they recognize the need for celebrations to take a different form during a pandemic. Ferrero will donate Halloween candy to The Birthday Party Project, a nonprofit that hosts birthday celebrations for homeless children throughout the U.S., and highlight the organization's work throughout the month.

Insight:

Ferrero's campaign aims to build excitement for Halloween, which has grown in popularity over the past decade and is now often celebrated by adults as well as kids. However, celebrations face significant disruption this year from the coronavirus pandemic. With health officials recommending people either practice social distancing or avoid trick-or-treating to help stop the spread of COVID-19, Halloween celebrations likely will be more confined at home and shared on social media, especially among tech-savvy millennial parents who are more likely to use Pinterest in their holiday planning. Social media has become a more important source in recent years for consumers researching Halloween costumes, according to data from the National Retail Federation (NRF).

Ferrero's "31 Days of Halloween" campaign can connect with those parents who are looking for ways to make the occasion enjoyable for kids who won't be able to trick or treat. The pandemic hasn't diminished many people's enthusiasm for the occasion, with 60% of consumers expecting to spend the same on Halloween this year as they did in 2019, per a survey by Insight to Action. The researcher estimates the average consumer will spend $89 on Halloween this year, a few dollars more than last year's average of $86 estimated by the NRF. The pandemic has had a mixed impact on candy sales, with some categories like gum losing sales while others, like chocolate, growing.

Candy's role for Halloween celebrations is just as strong this year, if not more so, according to research from the National Confectioners Association cited by Ferrero. Among millennial moms and young parents, 90% said chocolate and candy are a crucial part of the holiday. Additionally, 74% said Halloween is more important than ever this year.

Ferrero is giving people a chance to buy its products with shoppable pins, catering to the overall trend of growing e-commerce sales while consumers are practicing social distancing. Shoppable pins were introduced by Pinterest as Buyable Pins in 2015 and updated two years ago as Product Pinsto show more information about pricing and availability, along with a link to a retailer's checkout page. By developing special content for Pinterest, Ferrero can reach consumers who use the app to find ideas about recipes and events. Pinterest's monthly average users (MAUs) in the U.S. grew 13% to 96 million in Q2 from a year earlier, while domestic revenue slipped 2% to $232 million as the pandemic dampened demand for advertising.