Which brands sparkled over Bonfire weekend?

With all the tricks and treats of Halloween over for another year, brands had a small window of opportunity to make a bang on Bonfire night. With some holding onto the Halloween hype, and others trying to get a head start on Christmas, Bonfire night is losing some of its light in the middle of two huge retail opportunities.

But we saw some brands keeping the theme alight, with examples shining brightly  on social media. Here are some of the best displays put on by brands.

 

Aldi

Aldi expertly blended offers held across the weekend with fun interactive puzzles across their social channels. This included anagrams, riddles and a “find the emoji” puzzle which gave followers the chance to win £30. This was a great way to get Aldi fans engaged with the brand. Offering a small incentive not only will encourage more people to share and retweet, but also offers a little more insight into the fun side of the brand’s personality.

 

McDonalds

McDonalds UK rocketed into the Bonfire Night trend, sharing a play on word fry-work GIF over the weekend. Captioned “remember remember to get me some fries” the brand was able to incorporate firework fun with promoting its product. McDonald’s cleverly waited to join the Bonfire trend until the 5th, when cold spectators would be in search of hot food to warm up, and what better way to prompt people into the restaurant than to post a playful GIF reminding followers to pay them a visit. Social media was the perfect platform for this promotion –  all channels are alight on Bonfire Night with users sharing their Bonfire Night pictures, meaning it was a sure-fire way for the brand to ensure maximum views, helping increase sales.

 

Alive!

Multivitamins and supplements brand, Alive! took a different approach to Bonfire Night, using it as a way to not only engage with existing followers, but also to encourage more Twitter users to follow and share posts. Playing to its wellbeing and lifestyle values, it offered the chance to win a hat and glove set to keep fans cosy and warm. The competition ran in the run up to Bonfire Night and over the weekend with a series of effective visual tweets. This was a great example to how capitalising on events can be used to a brand’s advantage to increase social channel numbers. A competition is a surefire way to ensure a post receives additional shares. Alive! has shown that an incentive as small as a hat and glove set can provide significantly higher interaction, with the post receiving 241 retweets, which is a vast improvement on the three or four retweet average the brand normally upholds.

 

RSPCA

This Bonfire Night, the RSPCA showcased the power social media upholds to promote a message. Its post topped the Bonfire Night charts, becoming the most talked about on social channels. The campaign asked people to watch out for hedgehogs before lighting bonfires and it shows how powerful social media can be as a tool to influence. The post received 767 retweets, with many taking the message to then recreate their own hedgehog awareness posts. This is a great example of the power to influence and change thinking social media has as a platform.

 

Amy Brough is a junior account executive at The Behaviours Agency

For more examples of how retailers and brands are shaping shopper behaviour visit our work