Nerds’ Five-Star Treat Is No Trick

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For the last few weeks we’ve been spotlighting some great Halloween campaigns that brands are re-running this year. Your Halloween party costume might need a new idea every year: your ad campaign doesn’t – a great Spooky Season ad can rise from the grave October after October. 

But that’s not to say there aren’t great new Halloween ads being made, like this week’s Ad Of The Week from candy brand Nerds. Like Christmas, Halloween comes with a set of seasonal habits and images which brands can tap into for a big emotional lift. And for candy brands the central one is, of course, trick or treating. 

So, the Nerds campaign has a very clear opportunity and a very clear premise. We see kids in different Halloween costumes going trick or treating, and we hear their delighted screams of “NEEEEERDS!” when the door opens and they see a bowl of Nerds. But then we get the reveal that the Nerds are being carried by the Nerds Gummy Monster mascot, making a very appropriate Halloween appearance. 

The Gummy Monster, a large and loveable beast made of Nerds Gummy Clusters, first appeared in the brand’s 2024 Super Bowl ad. It was a popular debut, scoring 4.6-Stars, and we predicted at the time that the creature could have a bright future as a Nerds Fluent Device, showing up repeatedly in Nerds commercials to build positive response and familiarity. 

The Monster’s reappearance this year shows how right we were. The Nerds Trick-or-Treat ad scores a rare “triple”, with Exceptional scores in all three of our core Test Your Ad metrics: Star Rating, Spike Rating and Brand Fluency. The ad gets a 5.0-Star Rating, which predicts long-term brand building potential – Fluent Devices like the Gummy Monster are proven to be effective at driving up Star Rating over time as their consistency works. 

But the ad is also a short-term winner, with exceptional Spike Rating, and its 95% Brand Fluency score shows people have zero doubt about who the ad is for. That’s down to the Monster too but also the sheer joy an excitement captured by the screaming Trick-Or-Treaters, which boosts the emotional intensity of the spot. 

It’s an all-round exceptional commercial for Nerds, and also a great example of how Halloween commercials are getting both more effective and more important for brands. With a typically shorter screentime than the more lavish Christmas ad, Halloween ads need to be to the point but also need to stand out against the competition. As we’ve seen, strong product placement and branding is a must, but so too are humor, surprise and the clever use of Fluent Devices. Get it right and you have an ad you can easily re-use across multiple years, like a bowl of treats that never runs out.