A Headless Hit: Butterfinger’s Horseman Returns for 2026

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Halloween ads continue to roll out and as ever it’s the Candy & Gum category which is seeing the most attention and the best new commercials. Candy & Gum is an unusual category whose advertisers face a different problem than many brands. In many sectors, boring category conventions drag the average Test Your Ad score down, and the struggle is to find a way of showcasing your brand in an entertaining manner. 

Candy has the opposite problem. It boasts one of the highest average Test Your Ad Star Ratings, with a norm of 3.9-Stars. Candy is a product with happiness built in, which means a brand has to find ways to stand out against competitors. Halloween is a particular battleground but also the perfect opportunity – there’s a wealth of Halloween imagery allowing a brand to try something different. 

Which brings us to Butterfinger and their excellent Halloween ad, borrowing the classic imagery of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. The Horseman – speaking through a carved pumpkin, has stolen some Butterfinger candies. Our 18th century heroes are holding his head hostage for their return. It’s a standoff – until the Horseman falls off his horse and the candies are returned. Tagline: “No-one lays a finger on your Butterfinger this Halloween”. 

The ad first aired last year and was clearly successful enough to earn a return of engagement, meaning Butterfinger’s investment goes further, and consistency and familiarity increases. You can see that familiarity at work in the 99% Brand Fluency rating, which puts Butterfinger in the top 3% of this hard-fought category. 

High Brand Fluency also helps Spike Rating, our predictor of short-term sales boosts, which is vital for a seasonal promotion. The Headless Horseman ad gets exceptional Spike, in the top 6% of the category, showing Butterfinger have themselves a sales powerhouse. No surprise, it was renewed for a second year. The long-term, brand building Star Rating is also in the top 25% of Candy & Gum ads, at 4.7-Stars. 

For a 15-second ad, those are impressive figures. The secrets to Butterfinger’s success here are humor, storytelling, and of course the attention-grabbing cultural reference of the Horseman himself. The ad packs entertaining images (a pumpkin munching a candy bar) and a satisfying reversal (the Horseman falling off his horse) into a very brief runtime. Those elements of showmanship help the ad stand out in a competitive category at a time of year when screens are clogged with candy products. 

When we wrote about the M&Ms x Snickers ad recently, we pointed out that Christmas has perennial ads which are shown every year and become part of the season, but Halloween doesn’t. With brands reusing their most successful Spooky Season inventory, that might be on the verge of changing. The Horseman and Butterfinger could ride out for many more years to come.