October 22, 2025 • 28 mins
We crunch into Doritos’ Stranger Things telethon stunt and unwrap the best of this year’s Halloween ad tricks and treats.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SmallBiz #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #art #Brands #logos #halloween #strangerthings #hawkins #candy #trickortreat
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SmallBiz #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #art #Brands #logos #halloween #strangerthings #hawkins #candy #trickortreat
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaking Human. Today, on Speaking Human, we crunch into Dorito's
Stranger Things, telethon stunt and unwrap the best of this
year's Halloween ad, tricks and treats. Speaking Human.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
marketing for humans. I'm Shad, calmly and with me is
my co host Patrick Jebber.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Trick or Treat Shad, Trick or treat, Trick or treat.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's here again, just like it's like comes every year.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
This is the year, though I know you're gonna smell
my feet.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I am hoping it's not. You can only dodge it
so many years.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
You know the rule. If you don't want to smell
my feet, then you got to give me something good
to eat.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So well, it's so subjective, do you Is it what
you consider good or what I consider good.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's definitely what you consider good, not what I consider good.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm just I'm thinking of Resi's cup works every.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Year, it really does. I mean, you can't go wrong,
you just it's really hard to go wrong. Have you
tried the new peanut butter and jelly greasy cups?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
No? But I tried the oreo.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Oh do you try that. Yeah, those are good.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
They're all right.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, those are good. I like them. A little bit
of crunch in there.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Did you like the peanut butter jelly ones? Because that
sounds kind of gross jelly.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's actually not too bad. It is weird at first,
because like in your mind, you think jelly, but it's
actually like a little glaze. It's not really what you expect.
It's almost like the Lava ones if you remember the
Lava Yeah, it came out about the same time. There
was I think a commercial about them, and it's not
(01:58):
what you expect. I thought it was going to be
like this weird hot chocolate lava in the bottom of
but it's not.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Like a jelly donut.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, it's just not quite what you anticipate. But it's
not bad. The peanut butter and jelly was different. It
was different and not different in a horrible way. It
was stranger than I thought it would be.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, they're trying some new things, they're throwing some things
out there.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, so trivia for today, getting everyone into the Halloween mood,
getting in everyone into the Stranger Things mood. Maybe the
Stranger Things five is coming out in November, not in October,
which is kind of a weird move for me.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, it seems like it was right there, but you know,
they're kind of doing a holiday thing with it, releasing
during the holidays. Is there a strategy here?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Isn't Halloween a holiday?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Though?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So like, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's not stay home holiday. It's not like Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I guess true? True? All right, so here's a marketing
related question for you. Okay, we're starting things off in
the upside down to set the tone, all right, in
the world of Stranger Things, Chad, what brand of snack
food did the character eleven famously steal from a grocery
(03:13):
store in season one?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I know this.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You don't need the multiple choice, right, No, I.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Don't think I need it.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Okay, what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's pop tarts?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
No, not pop tarts? Oh? Wasn't she had the pop tarts?
I was so confident. Well, I guess I need the
multiple choice then?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, all right? Was it a Doritos b not pop tarts?
You've already he.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Was pop tarts? Okay, we've eliminated that one.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Was it c Ago waffles or d pringles?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
See it's a go waffles?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, you would have definitely got that wrong. Yeah I
did technically, But.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I don't know why I had pop tarts on
my mind, but that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
She was.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Ago waffles were her thing. I had like totally the
brain melted, mixed it up. I was like pop tarts.
It was like clear as day. But no, now that
you say it, I'm like, oh, yeah, Ago waffles were
her thing. The confidence though I had such thoughts. I
almost if I would have listened to myself, i'd be
like that guy knows he's right.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
For a second, I thought you had like telekinetic powers
like her, because you looked at me and you're like, yeah,
I know, don't even give me the options.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, well, this is what happens when a show hasn't
been on for ten years.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, that is true when you have a show that
has that length of time, especially between seasons. Yeah, you
forget things. Fun fact, Ago sales actually spiked fourteen percent
in twenty sixteen after that, so I guess Netflix can
technically sell almost anything.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah. The kids were probably like kids who had never
heard of Ago waffles were probably like I want those things, just.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
A little tidbit of what you're getting today in the episode.
Maybe there were listeners out there who were like, Shad,
how did you know?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
How'd you blow it? You should have known that. Everybody
knows that. Don't worry. I feel shame. I should have
known it. But it felt so good and then it
was just so wrong. You know, I got it on
the multiple choice part. If there's a silver lining here,
there is.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
There's always a silver lining.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So but moving forward, Stranger Things obviously no Stranger to
product tie ins, brand collaborations. Brands have been all over
this show since it premiered, and we've got a new
one now, which is what we're going to talk about
a little here today. Said Dorito's, a brand that's actually
(05:44):
been around since nineteen sixty four, has teamed up one
of the most popular Netflix shows of all time. I
think Wednesday has now beat it out, but Stranger Things
one of the most popular shows of all time. For
retro style mark campaign, the brand launched a statically looking
ad promoting the Dorito's Telethon for Hawkins. For those who
(06:09):
don't know, telethons were big in the eighties. This is
where people would call in and like pledge their donation.
This was a big thing we had on TV when
you had like three channels, so you had no choice
but to watch these. But I digress. In this ad,
a spokesman in an old suit holding a bag of
Dorito's talks about the strange things happening in Hawkins, Indiana,
(06:31):
where the show takes place, and they need to be
bold and help out. The AD's got some serious eighties
vibes with David Hasselhoff, Paula Abdul, and even Alf in
case you don't know who that is. That is a
puppets creature who was in an eighties TV show. ALF.
ALF stands for Alien life Form, very funny, likes to
(06:53):
eat cats.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, pretty sure, we've we've had a conversation or two
revolving around ALF in one of the last almost two
hundred episodes of the show.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I mean he's had to come up at least once. Right,
So those you know, those famous eighties celebrities all part
of a hotline fans can actually call at one eight
five five four Hawkins. Now, when you do call that number,
you'll hear nostalgic messages from these people, and you can
(07:23):
even leave your own message. With standout fan messages popping
up on social media and digital billboards in the future.
That's the plan. Anyway. The snacks themselves are in on
the action too, So Dorito's dropped a limited edition flavor
mashup Stranger Pizza x Cool Ranch, and that's also got
(07:43):
the hotline number printed on the bag. Plus there's a
spooky new glow in the dark Dorito's minis Flavor with
a supernatural twist. So all that stuff we got, the
digital content, we've got the nostalgic marketing and the product
tie ins, giving us a full trip back to nineteen
(08:05):
eighty seven from Dorito's. Patrick thoughts on this Dorito's campaign
for Stranger Things so working for you? Did you like it?
Dislike it? Did it stir up some emotions inside of you?
Did it take you back?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So many emotions? So many emotions. Did you mention the
did you see the collisions? Did you say collisions?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I meant yeah, I mentioned the They had the you know,
flavor mashup, which is the collisions that's the Stranger Pizza
and Cool Ranch like together.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah. I watched a few of these, like people who
did the taste test reviews of this. Yeah, they're generally
pretty funny. Anytime you watch people do taste test videos,
you know, like we've done them before for you know,
speaking human. It's always kind of funny because watching people
eat food and then tell you what they think of.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
It is, yes, is it a positive or people like
it can't be that gross to Dota And there's got
cool range Dorito's in there.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, it's stranger pizza flavor. They said it's pretty close
to pizza, not just you know, the nacho cheese or
whatever it is. That's normal. And it's got a little
heat to it from a couple of the reviews, so
it's not straight up Dorito's. Yeah, with the cool ranch.
What I like about that is it's interesting that they
(09:24):
put them both in the same bag. That's a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, it's super weird though, because you've never seen them
do that before, and I like that. I do like
that anyway. The original question was what do you think
this telethon campaign checks some boxes for me? You know,
we talk about it all the time. It's retro, you know,
retro ish in some cases it leans into the eighties,
(09:51):
you know, which is near and dear to our hearts.
So I like that part. And it has a spooky
theme which for me, it's connected to this Stranger Things,
which I loved watching with my family. So there's personal
boxes there for me, and I like those. But I
think generally, as like a marketing campaign, it works really well.
I think it's because they went a little bit beyond
(10:15):
the norm. They went a little bit more immersive than
most efforts like this, Like most collabs generally just they
phone it in. Yeah, you know, no pun intended with
the telethon, They just phone it in. So I like that,
and I think the one probably slightly negative that I
felt when I watched the ad, which maybe there's going
(10:36):
to be more to this as time goes on to
leading up to the show and stuff. The one negative
is like it was short, Like I wanted a little
bit more. That would be my only negative takeaway from
that portion of the campaign of the collaboration. You know,
it felt really quick, So maybe it's like all this
other immersive stuff is supposed to take the place of that,
(10:58):
and so they didn't want to like drag that out,
you know, Like the calling and the phone number. I
love that part. I called in the phone number a
few times just to hear it, Like first time I
got alf which was great, total flashback to our childhood.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I also got ALF.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Did you get ALF the first time?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah? I got off twice.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh see. I called back to get ALF again because
I wanted to record it. I was like, I want
to record this. And it didn't record the first time.
I was like crap. So I called back and I
got the girl Erica. A little Yeah, I got Erica,
and I was like, ah, I got Erica.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I don't I wonder if it's like a they track
your number and do like a certain order, because that's
kind of I got ALF. I got ALF again, and
then I got Erica.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Okay, and I haven't you know.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That was the number of times I called.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I got Alf Erica, and then I was going to
call it third and I didn't. The point is I
really like that, and I think, you know, just even
that alone, like if it had been the ad and that,
I would have been like, that's cool. That's a cool campaign.
You know, they put in the extra effort to make it,
you know, somewhat entertaining.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm with you. I like this, and it's for a
lot of the reasons you said, you know, I just
love it all in campaign. I think a lot of
people would have just done the ad and that's kind
of it, you know what I mean. They would have
been like, hey, we're tied in with Stranger Things. Maybe
they would have put like a Stranger Thing stamp on
the bag or something like that. Yeah, but this has gone,
(12:21):
you know, the extra mile here. It's like layered it in.
So we get the ad in the commercial, we get
the phone number. This is a big thing going back
to even when I was younger seeing the movie Ghostbusters
when they put the number on the screen. I don't
know if you had this experience where I would call
the number, you know, the Ghostbusters number, and it was
a real missed opportunity. I felt you'd get nothing. It
(12:43):
wasn't like a working number, but I wanted that to be.
You know, it was a bummer that you're not like
getting some kind of message or something like that. It
sounds dumb, but there's kind of like a stupid glee
you get when you're actually calling this number you see
in an ad and then it brings it into the
real world and then you're here Alf's voice. Yeah, it's
like low hanging fruit, but man, it really makes a difference.
(13:06):
So I like that extra Step. I like that they
had the celebrities in there too. I agree with you.
I feel like there's got to be more to come.
Because they have these people in there, they have them
record these messages. It feels like there should be like
another piece to this coming later. I don't know if
that's true, but it feels like there is more, you know,
or there should be more because they put all this together.
(13:26):
And then from what you get from the messages where
they tell you, like, hey, leave a message for Hawkins,
but whenever you leave, our marketing team can use it
gives you the idea that you know, there's another piece
to this where they're they're going to go to take
your messages, you know, the fan input. We're giving this
to you, We want you to reach out to us,
and then what you give us back, we're gonna kind
of like spit back out there and do something else
(13:48):
with it. So I like that there's kind of all
these layers to it, and there's engagement to it. You're
like actively participating in it, and you have these not one,
not two, but three eighties aims to participate in it too,
and they didn't forget about the product. They actually like
have the packaging on the store shelves, which has a
lot of If you look at the back of that
(14:09):
Collisions bag, it's got like a whole like little story
and like Stranger Things logo and animation gone there and
stuff like that too. So they're really like putting this
out there. It's not just like a half hearted effort,
like you said.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And Dorito's is kind of known for they sort of
embrace the absurdity sometimes, you know, and also engagement like
that the Super Bowl ads.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, with the fans submitting the ads.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, So it's very brand consistent in that way. And
I like that. I like that Dorito's didn't just give
us this half ass effort. And I can't imagine they
would have, because this is a pretty big collab, you know,
like people have been anticipating this final season of Stranger Things.
If they did, it would have been a missed opportunity
(14:55):
for sure. And to your point, you know, like the
call in number, they probably didn't have that ca capability
back then, yeah, even though I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
All you need is a phone number and an answer machine, right.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
But the logistics of that was probably way more complicated
than any brand wanted to go through back then. Now,
some twelve year old could set that up in their
bedroom right now, you know. Yeah, So overall, i'd give
it a big thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, I agree. I think we're both on the pretty
positive side. They did what Dorito's did, well, give it
five crunches, superhuman, two thumbs up. However, you want a.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Great listeners, We haven't done a Halloween episode or anything
that's sort of the season in what two or three years,
maybe it's been a while.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I know we did a couple of them back in
the day where we kind of go through some of
the you know, hot holiday campaigns or ads for around
Halloween time. We did one episode where we just talked
about candy packaging. Is that what we did?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, I think yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah. So there's a few of them if you go
back through the archives, but we haven't it's been a
couple of years.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah. So this year we thought, you know, because of
this Dorito's which sort of inspired us to do this episode,
we thought we'd each pick one other Halloween related ad
or marketing effort this year that we thought stood out
to us, and then you know, just talked a little
bit about why we liked it or didn't like it
or whatever. It will give you a little bit more
(16:19):
to think about, you know, if you're thinking, Hey, you know,
what are the good other good Halloween efforts out there?
Not just Derito's. I don't even like Dorito's, right, maybe
you're that person.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'm sick a stranger thing.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Hey, stranger things, Derito's telethons, I don't like any of it. Well,
maybe you'll like one of these that we point out.
So would you pick out shad that you liked?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I'm wondering if you shouldn't go first here, I've got two, okay,
And because one of them, I'm like, is Patrick gonna
pick this one? So then I grabbed another one just
in case. I don't know if you're going to pick it,
but I thought there was a chance you might because it's,
you know, fairly recent and in the news.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Okay, So my pick is the effort from M and M's.
I picked another food brand.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's almost impossible not to pick a food brand.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, at Halloween, for sure, it's candy. If you're not
promoting yourself and you're candy at Halloween, there's something wrong.
There's something wrong with you. But this Eminem's they've got
a few of these It's more Fun together and they're
more fun together campaign, but this one that I picked
is horrific and delicious. I really like this where the
(17:26):
Eminems are sitting on the couch and they're watching television.
The one Eminem, the yellow guy who's kind of funny
because he's kind of doofy, you know, he's, yeah, he's
a dope. He's a dope. Yeah, and he's like, don't
go in there, you know, And you wonder what they're
talking about. And here someone's doing cooking show and they're
blending the Eminem's into the cookie dough and that's their
(17:47):
horror movie right that they're watching. It's quick. The whole
series of these are fun in that way, but it
nails this balance between spooky and fun. It also doesn't
try too hard. This is what I think the candy
brands really have to try to do, and I think
Eminem's always does it really well. Is you don't want
to scare away kids, right, you want to do something
(18:08):
that's fun but also light spookiness that is sort of
witty and has some humor in it. A couple other
things I'll say about this one brand consistency which we
talked about the Doritos. Like, that's what I love about
the Eminem's is that uniformity across all of their efforts
and then this connection that they make. You could call
(18:30):
it an emotional connection if you want to, But they
create these small moments of delight and surprise, whether it's
part of the joke, you know, the punchline that they're
using in that specific little spot. It's not meant to
sell millions of candies overnight. It's just meant to sort
of give you this emotional feeling. When you see Eminems,
you feel connected to them in some way. Maybe that
(18:50):
even ties back into brand consistency with the characters. Have
you seen that one, the Horrific and Delicious?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I did see that one, and that's a good one.
That's very Eminem's, you know what I mean, Like totally
fits with their tone. I think of like their Christmas
commercials and stuff. It's very much in their wheelhouse, in
their vibe. I like, you know, this commercial actually hits
on this like vibe, which is kind of like this
toy story idea that the M and ms can die
(19:19):
and experience pain and sadness and like fear. Yeah, you know, yeah,
and watching this is like watching you know, it's like
for a human, watching a human get like mauled and
ripped into pieces.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, and yet we find humor in that, you know,
because they're not human. There's a way for us to
find some joy out of that, which is you know,
maybe a little sick, you know, if you're really kind
of looking at the psychology of it.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
But yeah, silly eminem worried about getting you know, ground
up into tiny bits.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, and then eaten later because you're a part
of a cookie, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, but yeah, that's a good one. Very much, very
much on ran there. I'll tell you what I pick,
which is also a candy. The reason I thought you
might have picked it is because I think it just dropped,
so it's very much recent. Top of the feed. But
this one comes from gushers. Do you remember gushers? Oh yeah,
you know you bite into these fruit things and this
disgusting juice squirts into the back of your mouth. Yeah. Well,
(20:20):
in the nineties they had this ad where people would
eat a gusher and their heads would turn into fruit
with some kind of disturbing looking special effects, or some
people thought they were disturbing. Yeah, In response to online
conversation about that ad from the nineties, which people still
talk about, General Mills produced a new short film for Halloween.
(20:42):
This film stars Bradley Whitford, fairly famous actor people might
know him from Billy Madison's on the West Wing using
get out a ton of credits if you like, look
him up, and it's called fruit Head.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
So the idea here, these people have talked about being
traumatized by the un potentially terrifying nineties ad. So this
ad or short film as they call it, it's like
six minutes long with credits, takes that terror and kind
of runs with it. The premise, one actor from the
nineties ad was cursed to live his life as a
(21:15):
fruit head, like as he appeared in this you Know
ad in the nineties. Now as an adult, he seeks
revenge on the TV commercial director played by Bradley Whitford
who made him this way and this you know film
used a lot of like horror movie tropes. It's got
the tone, it's got you know, it feels scary, even
(21:37):
though it's kind of got its tongue in cheek the
whole time. It has those disturbing visuals that people talked
about online, so they're using that, and it also has
kind of a classic twist the knife no horror movie
type ending, so it's pretty good in that way. I
like that they use, you know, what people were talking
about online to kind of fuel this effort. They also
(22:00):
constructed some good pseudo movie marketing around this. There's kind
of like a blocky, almost clockwork orange like title font
they used. They have some artwork for it with like
a scary, dripping strawberry face with some like disturbing eyes
looking out at this guy who's like tied up. They
have the tagline revenge is a dish best served fruity,
(22:25):
which you know, probably could have been workshopped a little,
but it goes with what they're doing here. Yeah, So overall,
I just really like the genesis of this idea. I
like how it came about taking conversation online, which is
someone say, skewing toward the negative on your brand or
your marketing or what you've done in the past, and
kind of playing with that a little bit in a
fun way for Halloween. So that's what I enjoyed here.
(22:47):
I think it's worth a watch. It's an interesting effort.
Fruit Head from Gushers.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
The name reminds me of Pumpkinhead, which is a scary
movie from the back of the day.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, an eighties horror movie.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah. I didn't actually see this one prior, but it
does look pretty good. You know what's funny is, do
you remember back in the day when we first started
this podcast, we talked about it a lot, this idea
of entertainment and marketing together, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Oh yeah, like the merging of the two.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And we were like, this is going to happen more
and more and more, and we were talking about it,
and I think we were really on the cutting edge.
We were the first ones to say it and think
it to the listeners. You know, if you don't know
me by now, I'm being a little sarcastic, but.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
We're always ahead of the current.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
We're always the first ones who ever thought of the
thing that we just said on the show. But you know,
like this is what I kind of love about a
lot of the brands, Like they're making these films. I'm
seeing this all the time now, like every week there
is this like a short film. Yeah, this short film,
and like, man, that that was a huge effort for
them to put that together. But what's so beautiful about
(23:54):
marketing right now is that you know this is possible,
This is actually possible, like for Gushers, General Mills right
to put this film together that's well crafted. You feel
like this is like like a little movie.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, and it can live online and it can find
an audience, you know, and you end up getting like
hundreds of thousands of views, whereas before this wouldn't really
have a place to exist.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah. And in some cases these are like really well written.
I mean, I don't know about this one because again
I just saw it as we were kind of recording
the show and stuff. But some of these brand films
are like that. I like this one that you picked
because it's way different than the one I pick, on
the opposite ends of the spectrum with maybe a little
bit of the visuals and also, you know, even length.
(24:38):
The Eminem's one thing is like maybe thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, yours is a quickie. This one you have to
invest some time in yours. Is your six year old
kid could watch it this one, they'd probably be a
little disturbed by it.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Like, Daddy, why did you show me that?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I'm scared?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I can't go to bed now.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I'll never eat a gusher again. Yeah, I will throw
out the other one. You know, I thought about talking
about an honorable mention if you will. Fanta or the
Coca Cola company had kind of did a collaboration with
Universal and Blumhouse. So they had these ads and different
cans with Chucky and Freddy Fas Bear and the Grabber
(25:15):
and Michael Myers and math Reagan as I like to
call her from the Megan movies, so different like packaging
and promotions they were doing that. I thought. I thought
that was pretty good too.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah. I saw the little spot that they created for that,
and you know, the person was trying to get through
the house. Somebody was chasing them or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Are Yeah, they're just trying to drink a Fanta and
all these you know, different horror movie killers or chasing
after them trying to get their Fanta.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, Chucky ultimately drinks the Fanta spoiler.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Alert, Yeah, you did kind of ruin it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Why would you do that, Patrick? Why would you ruin
it on the show? I haven't even watched it yet.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We haven't heard from anybody who's gotten mad in the
past about a spoiling an ad.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, we've gotten some upset listeners from like movies, from
movies and marketing. When we spoiled the ending to sixth cents,
I think that was a big one, you know, because
it was only twenty five years old at the time
when we spoiled it. Anyway, here's the takeaway for today.
What do we do with all this? What do we
do with everything that we just talked about today? Listen,
(26:17):
this is what I'm going to tell you, all right,
Thirteen point one billion dollars is what's projected to be
spent by consumers during Halloween this year. So Halloween, in
my opinion, is where it's at beyond all the other
holidays and season. I mean, Halloween does have a huge,
huge opportunity for marketers. Add to that, you've got nostalgia,
(26:38):
which is one of marketing's most powerful tricks if you
want to call it a trick or a treat, but
it only works if you do it with purpose. So
the takeaway is just remember, if you want people to
engage with your brand, you've got to invite them into
the fun, you know, like the nostalgic fun that Dorito's created. Yeah,
it's ultimately about selling chips, but it's also about giving
(26:59):
people a moment of joy, which is what they're all doing,
bringing joy into that moment, and that's what it's all about.
So try that if you're a brand or a marketer
or a business that we might take away. What do
you think.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I think that's a good one. You know, I've always
liked Halloween. I think that gives you in marketing the
opportunity to go to just some really creative and weird
places that you can't really do necessarily the other times
of the year, And especially for some specific brands, it's
pretty perfect to just try some things that you haven't
done or you know, aren't really able to do other
(27:33):
times of the year.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Once you're talking about what was the one the it
wasn't it like a holiday like Christmas type of holiday?
Ad from Ikia where the dad or the fat the
grandfather died, right, And.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
That was not Ikia, that was I think it was Adco.
It was like a grocery or like a grocery store
in another country. But yeah, the guy was pretending to
be dead to get his family together. You could turn
that into a Halloween if you wanted to. There's a
you could Tim Burton version of that.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, for sure. No, I think that's a great point.
And Halloween be creative. I think we've said that before
on the Halloween episodes.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, it's it's my favorite of the holidays, marketing wise
and otherwise.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah. So yeah, let us know what your favorite Halloween
ad or marketing effort is this year. You know, you
can feel free to reach out feedback at speaking human
dot com. But that's it for today's episode. You can
find current and past episodes of the podcast on speakinghuman
dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
Speaking Human. Catch it in Humans, Speaking Human
Speaking Human. Today, on Speaking Human, we crunch into Dorito's
Stranger Things, telethon stunt and unwrap the best of this
year's Halloween ad, tricks and treats. Speaking Human.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
marketing for humans. I'm Shad, calmly and with me is
my co host Patrick Jebber.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Trick or Treat Shad, Trick or treat, Trick or treat.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's here again, just like it's like comes every year.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
This is the year, though I know you're gonna smell
my feet.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I am hoping it's not. You can only dodge it
so many years.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
You know the rule. If you don't want to smell
my feet, then you got to give me something good
to eat.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So well, it's so subjective, do you Is it what
you consider good or what I consider good.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's definitely what you consider good, not what I consider good.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm just I'm thinking of Resi's cup works every.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Year, it really does. I mean, you can't go wrong,
you just it's really hard to go wrong. Have you
tried the new peanut butter and jelly greasy cups?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
No? But I tried the oreo.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Oh do you try that. Yeah, those are good.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
They're all right.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, those are good. I like them. A little bit
of crunch in there.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Did you like the peanut butter jelly ones? Because that
sounds kind of gross jelly.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's actually not too bad. It is weird at first,
because like in your mind, you think jelly, but it's
actually like a little glaze. It's not really what you expect.
It's almost like the Lava ones if you remember the
Lava Yeah, it came out about the same time. There
was I think a commercial about them, and it's not
(01:58):
what you expect. I thought it was going to be
like this weird hot chocolate lava in the bottom of
but it's not.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Like a jelly donut.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, it's just not quite what you anticipate. But it's
not bad. The peanut butter and jelly was different. It
was different and not different in a horrible way. It
was stranger than I thought it would be.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, they're trying some new things, they're throwing some things
out there.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, so trivia for today, getting everyone into the Halloween mood,
getting in everyone into the Stranger Things mood. Maybe the
Stranger Things five is coming out in November, not in October,
which is kind of a weird move for me.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, it seems like it was right there, but you know,
they're kind of doing a holiday thing with it, releasing
during the holidays. Is there a strategy here?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Isn't Halloween a holiday?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Though?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So like, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's not stay home holiday. It's not like Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I guess true? True? All right, so here's a marketing
related question for you. Okay, we're starting things off in
the upside down to set the tone, all right, in
the world of Stranger Things, Chad, what brand of snack
food did the character eleven famously steal from a grocery
(03:13):
store in season one?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I know this.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You don't need the multiple choice, right, No, I.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Don't think I need it.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Okay, what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's pop tarts?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
No, not pop tarts? Oh? Wasn't she had the pop tarts?
I was so confident. Well, I guess I need the
multiple choice then?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, all right? Was it a Doritos b not pop tarts?
You've already he.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Was pop tarts? Okay, we've eliminated that one.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Was it c Ago waffles or d pringles?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
See it's a go waffles?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, you would have definitely got that wrong. Yeah I
did technically, But.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I don't know why I had pop tarts on
my mind, but that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
She was.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Ago waffles were her thing. I had like totally the
brain melted, mixed it up. I was like pop tarts.
It was like clear as day. But no, now that
you say it, I'm like, oh, yeah, Ago waffles were
her thing. The confidence though I had such thoughts. I
almost if I would have listened to myself, i'd be
like that guy knows he's right.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
For a second, I thought you had like telekinetic powers
like her, because you looked at me and you're like, yeah,
I know, don't even give me the options.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, well, this is what happens when a show hasn't
been on for ten years.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, that is true when you have a show that
has that length of time, especially between seasons. Yeah, you
forget things. Fun fact, Ago sales actually spiked fourteen percent
in twenty sixteen after that, so I guess Netflix can
technically sell almost anything.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah. The kids were probably like kids who had never
heard of Ago waffles were probably like I want those things, just.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
A little tidbit of what you're getting today in the episode.
Maybe there were listeners out there who were like, Shad,
how did you know?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
How'd you blow it? You should have known that. Everybody
knows that. Don't worry. I feel shame. I should have
known it. But it felt so good and then it
was just so wrong. You know, I got it on
the multiple choice part. If there's a silver lining here,
there is.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
There's always a silver lining.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So but moving forward, Stranger Things obviously no Stranger to
product tie ins, brand collaborations. Brands have been all over
this show since it premiered, and we've got a new
one now, which is what we're going to talk about
a little here today. Said Dorito's, a brand that's actually
(05:44):
been around since nineteen sixty four, has teamed up one
of the most popular Netflix shows of all time. I
think Wednesday has now beat it out, but Stranger Things
one of the most popular shows of all time. For
retro style mark campaign, the brand launched a statically looking
ad promoting the Dorito's Telethon for Hawkins. For those who
(06:09):
don't know, telethons were big in the eighties. This is
where people would call in and like pledge their donation.
This was a big thing we had on TV when
you had like three channels, so you had no choice
but to watch these. But I digress. In this ad,
a spokesman in an old suit holding a bag of
Dorito's talks about the strange things happening in Hawkins, Indiana,
(06:31):
where the show takes place, and they need to be
bold and help out. The AD's got some serious eighties
vibes with David Hasselhoff, Paula Abdul, and even Alf in
case you don't know who that is. That is a
puppets creature who was in an eighties TV show. ALF.
ALF stands for Alien life Form, very funny, likes to
(06:53):
eat cats.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, pretty sure, we've we've had a conversation or two
revolving around ALF in one of the last almost two
hundred episodes of the show.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I mean he's had to come up at least once. Right,
So those you know, those famous eighties celebrities all part
of a hotline fans can actually call at one eight
five five four Hawkins. Now, when you do call that number,
you'll hear nostalgic messages from these people, and you can
(07:23):
even leave your own message. With standout fan messages popping
up on social media and digital billboards in the future.
That's the plan. Anyway. The snacks themselves are in on
the action too, So Dorito's dropped a limited edition flavor
mashup Stranger Pizza x Cool Ranch, and that's also got
(07:43):
the hotline number printed on the bag. Plus there's a
spooky new glow in the dark Dorito's minis Flavor with
a supernatural twist. So all that stuff we got, the
digital content, we've got the nostalgic marketing and the product
tie ins, giving us a full trip back to nineteen
(08:05):
eighty seven from Dorito's. Patrick thoughts on this Dorito's campaign
for Stranger Things so working for you? Did you like it?
Dislike it? Did it stir up some emotions inside of you?
Did it take you back?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So many emotions? So many emotions. Did you mention the
did you see the collisions? Did you say collisions?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I meant yeah, I mentioned the They had the you know,
flavor mashup, which is the collisions that's the Stranger Pizza
and Cool Ranch like together.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah. I watched a few of these, like people who
did the taste test reviews of this. Yeah, they're generally
pretty funny. Anytime you watch people do taste test videos,
you know, like we've done them before for you know,
speaking human. It's always kind of funny because watching people
eat food and then tell you what they think of.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
It is, yes, is it a positive or people like
it can't be that gross to Dota And there's got
cool range Dorito's in there.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, it's stranger pizza flavor. They said it's pretty close
to pizza, not just you know, the nacho cheese or
whatever it is. That's normal. And it's got a little
heat to it from a couple of the reviews, so
it's not straight up Dorito's. Yeah, with the cool ranch.
What I like about that is it's interesting that they
(09:24):
put them both in the same bag. That's a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, it's super weird though, because you've never seen them
do that before, and I like that. I do like
that anyway. The original question was what do you think
this telethon campaign checks some boxes for me? You know,
we talk about it all the time. It's retro, you know,
retro ish in some cases it leans into the eighties,
(09:51):
you know, which is near and dear to our hearts.
So I like that part. And it has a spooky
theme which for me, it's connected to this Stranger Things,
which I loved watching with my family. So there's personal
boxes there for me, and I like those. But I
think generally, as like a marketing campaign, it works really well.
I think it's because they went a little bit beyond
(10:15):
the norm. They went a little bit more immersive than
most efforts like this, Like most collabs generally just they
phone it in. Yeah, you know, no pun intended with
the telethon, They just phone it in. So I like that,
and I think the one probably slightly negative that I
felt when I watched the ad, which maybe there's going
(10:36):
to be more to this as time goes on to
leading up to the show and stuff. The one negative
is like it was short, Like I wanted a little
bit more. That would be my only negative takeaway from
that portion of the campaign of the collaboration. You know,
it felt really quick, So maybe it's like all this
other immersive stuff is supposed to take the place of that,
(10:58):
and so they didn't want to like drag that out,
you know, Like the calling and the phone number. I
love that part. I called in the phone number a
few times just to hear it, Like first time I
got alf which was great, total flashback to our childhood.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I also got ALF.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Did you get ALF the first time?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah? I got off twice.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh see. I called back to get ALF again because
I wanted to record it. I was like, I want
to record this. And it didn't record the first time.
I was like crap. So I called back and I
got the girl Erica. A little Yeah, I got Erica,
and I was like, ah, I got Erica.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I don't I wonder if it's like a they track
your number and do like a certain order, because that's
kind of I got ALF. I got ALF again, and
then I got Erica.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Okay, and I haven't you know.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That was the number of times I called.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I got Alf Erica, and then I was going to
call it third and I didn't. The point is I
really like that, and I think, you know, just even
that alone, like if it had been the ad and that,
I would have been like, that's cool. That's a cool campaign.
You know, they put in the extra effort to make it,
you know, somewhat entertaining.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm with you. I like this, and it's for a
lot of the reasons you said, you know, I just
love it all in campaign. I think a lot of
people would have just done the ad and that's kind
of it, you know what I mean. They would have
been like, hey, we're tied in with Stranger Things. Maybe
they would have put like a Stranger Thing stamp on
the bag or something like that. Yeah, but this has gone,
(12:21):
you know, the extra mile here. It's like layered it in.
So we get the ad in the commercial, we get
the phone number. This is a big thing going back
to even when I was younger seeing the movie Ghostbusters
when they put the number on the screen. I don't
know if you had this experience where I would call
the number, you know, the Ghostbusters number, and it was
a real missed opportunity. I felt you'd get nothing. It
(12:43):
wasn't like a working number, but I wanted that to be.
You know, it was a bummer that you're not like
getting some kind of message or something like that. It
sounds dumb, but there's kind of like a stupid glee
you get when you're actually calling this number you see
in an ad and then it brings it into the
real world and then you're here Alf's voice. Yeah, it's
like low hanging fruit, but man, it really makes a difference.
(13:06):
So I like that extra Step. I like that they
had the celebrities in there too. I agree with you.
I feel like there's got to be more to come.
Because they have these people in there, they have them
record these messages. It feels like there should be like
another piece to this coming later. I don't know if
that's true, but it feels like there is more, you know,
or there should be more because they put all this together.
(13:26):
And then from what you get from the messages where
they tell you, like, hey, leave a message for Hawkins,
but whenever you leave, our marketing team can use it
gives you the idea that you know, there's another piece
to this where they're they're going to go to take
your messages, you know, the fan input. We're giving this
to you, We want you to reach out to us,
and then what you give us back, we're gonna kind
of like spit back out there and do something else
(13:48):
with it. So I like that there's kind of all
these layers to it, and there's engagement to it. You're
like actively participating in it, and you have these not one,
not two, but three eighties aims to participate in it too,
and they didn't forget about the product. They actually like
have the packaging on the store shelves, which has a
lot of If you look at the back of that
(14:09):
Collisions bag, it's got like a whole like little story
and like Stranger Things logo and animation gone there and
stuff like that too. So they're really like putting this
out there. It's not just like a half hearted effort,
like you said.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And Dorito's is kind of known for they sort of
embrace the absurdity sometimes, you know, and also engagement like
that the Super Bowl ads.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, with the fans submitting the ads.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, So it's very brand consistent in that way. And
I like that. I like that Dorito's didn't just give
us this half ass effort. And I can't imagine they
would have, because this is a pretty big collab, you know,
like people have been anticipating this final season of Stranger Things.
If they did, it would have been a missed opportunity
(14:55):
for sure. And to your point, you know, like the
call in number, they probably didn't have that ca capability
back then, yeah, even though I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
All you need is a phone number and an answer machine, right.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
But the logistics of that was probably way more complicated
than any brand wanted to go through back then. Now,
some twelve year old could set that up in their
bedroom right now, you know. Yeah, So overall, i'd give
it a big thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, I agree. I think we're both on the pretty
positive side. They did what Dorito's did, well, give it
five crunches, superhuman, two thumbs up. However, you want a.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Great listeners, We haven't done a Halloween episode or anything
that's sort of the season in what two or three years,
maybe it's been a while.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I know we did a couple of them back in
the day where we kind of go through some of
the you know, hot holiday campaigns or ads for around
Halloween time. We did one episode where we just talked
about candy packaging. Is that what we did?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, I think yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah. So there's a few of them if you go
back through the archives, but we haven't it's been a
couple of years.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah. So this year we thought, you know, because of
this Dorito's which sort of inspired us to do this episode,
we thought we'd each pick one other Halloween related ad
or marketing effort this year that we thought stood out
to us, and then you know, just talked a little
bit about why we liked it or didn't like it
or whatever. It will give you a little bit more
(16:19):
to think about, you know, if you're thinking, Hey, you know,
what are the good other good Halloween efforts out there?
Not just Derito's. I don't even like Dorito's, right, maybe
you're that person.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'm sick a stranger thing.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Hey, stranger things, Derito's telethons, I don't like any of it. Well,
maybe you'll like one of these that we point out.
So would you pick out shad that you liked?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I'm wondering if you shouldn't go first here, I've got two, okay,
And because one of them, I'm like, is Patrick gonna
pick this one? So then I grabbed another one just
in case. I don't know if you're going to pick it,
but I thought there was a chance you might because it's,
you know, fairly recent and in the news.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Okay, So my pick is the effort from M and M's.
I picked another food brand.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's almost impossible not to pick a food brand.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, at Halloween, for sure, it's candy. If you're not
promoting yourself and you're candy at Halloween, there's something wrong.
There's something wrong with you. But this Eminem's they've got
a few of these It's more Fun together and they're
more fun together campaign, but this one that I picked
is horrific and delicious. I really like this where the
(17:26):
Eminems are sitting on the couch and they're watching television.
The one Eminem, the yellow guy who's kind of funny
because he's kind of doofy, you know, he's, yeah, he's
a dope. He's a dope. Yeah, and he's like, don't
go in there, you know, And you wonder what they're
talking about. And here someone's doing cooking show and they're
blending the Eminem's into the cookie dough and that's their
(17:47):
horror movie right that they're watching. It's quick. The whole
series of these are fun in that way, but it
nails this balance between spooky and fun. It also doesn't
try too hard. This is what I think the candy
brands really have to try to do, and I think
Eminem's always does it really well. Is you don't want
to scare away kids, right, you want to do something
(18:08):
that's fun but also light spookiness that is sort of
witty and has some humor in it. A couple other
things I'll say about this one brand consistency which we
talked about the Doritos. Like, that's what I love about
the Eminem's is that uniformity across all of their efforts
and then this connection that they make. You could call
(18:30):
it an emotional connection if you want to, But they
create these small moments of delight and surprise, whether it's
part of the joke, you know, the punchline that they're
using in that specific little spot. It's not meant to
sell millions of candies overnight. It's just meant to sort
of give you this emotional feeling. When you see Eminems,
you feel connected to them in some way. Maybe that
(18:50):
even ties back into brand consistency with the characters. Have
you seen that one, the Horrific and Delicious?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I did see that one, and that's a good one.
That's very Eminem's, you know what I mean, Like totally
fits with their tone. I think of like their Christmas
commercials and stuff. It's very much in their wheelhouse, in
their vibe. I like, you know, this commercial actually hits
on this like vibe, which is kind of like this
toy story idea that the M and ms can die
(19:19):
and experience pain and sadness and like fear. Yeah, you know, yeah,
and watching this is like watching you know, it's like
for a human, watching a human get like mauled and
ripped into pieces.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, and yet we find humor in that, you know,
because they're not human. There's a way for us to
find some joy out of that, which is you know,
maybe a little sick, you know, if you're really kind
of looking at the psychology of it.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
But yeah, silly eminem worried about getting you know, ground
up into tiny bits.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, and then eaten later because you're a part
of a cookie, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, but yeah, that's a good one. Very much, very
much on ran there. I'll tell you what I pick,
which is also a candy. The reason I thought you
might have picked it is because I think it just dropped,
so it's very much recent. Top of the feed. But
this one comes from gushers. Do you remember gushers? Oh yeah,
you know you bite into these fruit things and this
disgusting juice squirts into the back of your mouth. Yeah. Well,
(20:20):
in the nineties they had this ad where people would
eat a gusher and their heads would turn into fruit
with some kind of disturbing looking special effects, or some
people thought they were disturbing. Yeah, In response to online
conversation about that ad from the nineties, which people still
talk about, General Mills produced a new short film for Halloween.
(20:42):
This film stars Bradley Whitford, fairly famous actor people might
know him from Billy Madison's on the West Wing using
get out a ton of credits if you like, look
him up, and it's called fruit Head.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
So the idea here, these people have talked about being
traumatized by the un potentially terrifying nineties ad. So this
ad or short film as they call it, it's like
six minutes long with credits, takes that terror and kind
of runs with it. The premise, one actor from the
nineties ad was cursed to live his life as a
(21:15):
fruit head, like as he appeared in this you Know
ad in the nineties. Now as an adult, he seeks
revenge on the TV commercial director played by Bradley Whitford
who made him this way and this you know film
used a lot of like horror movie tropes. It's got
the tone, it's got you know, it feels scary, even
(21:37):
though it's kind of got its tongue in cheek the
whole time. It has those disturbing visuals that people talked
about online, so they're using that, and it also has
kind of a classic twist the knife no horror movie
type ending, so it's pretty good in that way. I
like that they use, you know, what people were talking
about online to kind of fuel this effort. They also
(22:00):
constructed some good pseudo movie marketing around this. There's kind
of like a blocky, almost clockwork orange like title font
they used. They have some artwork for it with like
a scary, dripping strawberry face with some like disturbing eyes
looking out at this guy who's like tied up. They
have the tagline revenge is a dish best served fruity,
(22:25):
which you know, probably could have been workshopped a little,
but it goes with what they're doing here. Yeah, So overall,
I just really like the genesis of this idea. I
like how it came about taking conversation online, which is
someone say, skewing toward the negative on your brand or
your marketing or what you've done in the past, and
kind of playing with that a little bit in a
fun way for Halloween. So that's what I enjoyed here.
(22:47):
I think it's worth a watch. It's an interesting effort.
Fruit Head from Gushers.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
The name reminds me of Pumpkinhead, which is a scary
movie from the back of the day.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, an eighties horror movie.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah. I didn't actually see this one prior, but it
does look pretty good. You know what's funny is, do
you remember back in the day when we first started
this podcast, we talked about it a lot, this idea
of entertainment and marketing together, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Oh yeah, like the merging of the two.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And we were like, this is going to happen more
and more and more, and we were talking about it,
and I think we were really on the cutting edge.
We were the first ones to say it and think
it to the listeners. You know, if you don't know
me by now, I'm being a little sarcastic, but.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
We're always ahead of the current.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
We're always the first ones who ever thought of the
thing that we just said on the show. But you know,
like this is what I kind of love about a
lot of the brands, Like they're making these films. I'm
seeing this all the time now, like every week there
is this like a short film. Yeah, this short film,
and like, man, that that was a huge effort for
them to put that together. But what's so beautiful about
(23:54):
marketing right now is that you know this is possible,
This is actually possible, like for Gushers, General Mills right
to put this film together that's well crafted. You feel
like this is like like a little movie.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, and it can live online and it can find
an audience, you know, and you end up getting like
hundreds of thousands of views, whereas before this wouldn't really
have a place to exist.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah. And in some cases these are like really well written.
I mean, I don't know about this one because again
I just saw it as we were kind of recording
the show and stuff. But some of these brand films
are like that. I like this one that you picked
because it's way different than the one I pick, on
the opposite ends of the spectrum with maybe a little
bit of the visuals and also, you know, even length.
(24:38):
The Eminem's one thing is like maybe thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, yours is a quickie. This one you have to
invest some time in yours. Is your six year old
kid could watch it this one, they'd probably be a
little disturbed by it.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Like, Daddy, why did you show me that?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I'm scared?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I can't go to bed now.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I'll never eat a gusher again. Yeah, I will throw
out the other one. You know, I thought about talking
about an honorable mention if you will. Fanta or the
Coca Cola company had kind of did a collaboration with
Universal and Blumhouse. So they had these ads and different
cans with Chucky and Freddy Fas Bear and the Grabber
(25:15):
and Michael Myers and math Reagan as I like to
call her from the Megan movies, so different like packaging
and promotions they were doing that. I thought. I thought
that was pretty good too.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah. I saw the little spot that they created for that,
and you know, the person was trying to get through
the house. Somebody was chasing them or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Are Yeah, they're just trying to drink a Fanta and
all these you know, different horror movie killers or chasing
after them trying to get their Fanta.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, Chucky ultimately drinks the Fanta spoiler.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Alert, Yeah, you did kind of ruin it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Why would you do that, Patrick? Why would you ruin
it on the show? I haven't even watched it yet.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We haven't heard from anybody who's gotten mad in the
past about a spoiling an ad.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, we've gotten some upset listeners from like movies, from
movies and marketing. When we spoiled the ending to sixth cents,
I think that was a big one, you know, because
it was only twenty five years old at the time
when we spoiled it. Anyway, here's the takeaway for today.
What do we do with all this? What do we
do with everything that we just talked about today? Listen,
(26:17):
this is what I'm going to tell you, all right,
Thirteen point one billion dollars is what's projected to be
spent by consumers during Halloween this year. So Halloween, in
my opinion, is where it's at beyond all the other
holidays and season. I mean, Halloween does have a huge,
huge opportunity for marketers. Add to that, you've got nostalgia,
(26:38):
which is one of marketing's most powerful tricks if you
want to call it a trick or a treat, but
it only works if you do it with purpose. So
the takeaway is just remember, if you want people to
engage with your brand, you've got to invite them into
the fun, you know, like the nostalgic fun that Dorito's created. Yeah,
it's ultimately about selling chips, but it's also about giving
(26:59):
people a moment of joy, which is what they're all doing,
bringing joy into that moment, and that's what it's all about.
So try that if you're a brand or a marketer
or a business that we might take away. What do
you think.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I think that's a good one. You know, I've always
liked Halloween. I think that gives you in marketing the
opportunity to go to just some really creative and weird
places that you can't really do necessarily the other times
of the year, And especially for some specific brands, it's
pretty perfect to just try some things that you haven't
done or you know, aren't really able to do other
(27:33):
times of the year.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Once you're talking about what was the one the it
wasn't it like a holiday like Christmas type of holiday?
Ad from Ikia where the dad or the fat the
grandfather died, right, And.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
That was not Ikia, that was I think it was Adco.
It was like a grocery or like a grocery store
in another country. But yeah, the guy was pretending to
be dead to get his family together. You could turn
that into a Halloween if you wanted to. There's a
you could Tim Burton version of that.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, for sure. No, I think that's a great point.
And Halloween be creative. I think we've said that before
on the Halloween episodes.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, it's it's my favorite of the holidays, marketing wise
and otherwise.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah. So yeah, let us know what your favorite Halloween
ad or marketing effort is this year. You know, you
can feel free to reach out feedback at speaking human
dot com. But that's it for today's episode. You can
find current and past episodes of the podcast on speakinghuman
dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
Speaking Human. Catch it in Humans, Speaking Human
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