Context

Halloween has always been about hoarding the best candies for yourself (without judgment, of course!) or sharing the sugar rush with kids ringing your doorbell. Nowadays, there are more fun, extra-splurged, Halloween-themed candy options than ever, which the customers love to dive into the candy bowl. With neck-to-neck competition in the retail industry as Halloween knocks on the doors, brands are betting big on eye-catchy, vibrant designs to seal the deal with interested and on-the-edge customers.

From the classic candies, chocolate bars, and zombie-themed snacks to Kitkat bars and sour gummy treats, here’s a roundup of the spookiest new Halloween candy releases from the biggest brands worldwide. In this article, we a deep dive into the ten Halloween themed candy packs, and unlock the following insights by identifying:

• The highest performing pack
• Which pack resonate most with consumers
• Which AOIs generate more interest
• Which ad theme is the most engaging with the audiences
• Which elements in a pack generates more interest
• The heatmaps of the various theme

First off, let’s explore the ten candy packs in detail.

The limited-edition Halloween-inspired candies strive to attract and engage young and adult customers alike through colors and themes most relevant to them. Now, let’s delve deep into the product packaging for these ten packs. We interpret the stopping power and the holding power for these packs.

Here, closing power depicts the emotional intensity evoked, engagement, and a strong correlation to persuasion levels. On the other hand, the stopping power talks about the time to discovery. Time to discovery means the average time elapsed when the respondent first discovers an Area of Interest (AOI). On the contrary, holding power​ illustrates the earned attention indicating the average time spent by all the respondents.

Nerds Rope

The bite-sized, crunchy and tangy peculiarly shaped characters, Nerds Ropes, are packaged in orange, blue, and confetti-colored packets. The rope is famous for its gummy-like soft and chewy nature and sweet and crunchy nerd-like appearance, fun for young and adult trick-and-treaters alike.

The packaging gives a run-of-the-mill performance with an average holding power of 7.53 and a closing power on the lower end at 21.51. Here, the brand name chalks up a stropping power of 1.20 and a slightly better holding power of 1.86. In parallel, the quantity mentioned has a higher time to discovery at a stopping power of 2.87, whereas its earned attention remains low with a holding power of 0.41.

On the other end, the pack characters have a better stopping power at 1.59 and average holding power of 0.75. The product shot bags a stopping and holding power of 2.33 and 0.55, respectively. As per the insights, viewers take excruciatingly long to discover the ingredient info as the stopping power remains high at 3.36 and holding power at 0.11.

Mars Skittles

Treating its customers with a surprising, limited-edition Skittles this Halloween, Mars Wrigley has floored Shriekers packed with a spooky, sour punch. Skittles is trying to win customers with an unpredictable yet Halloween-themed experience. The pack is loaded with five frightening flavors like Ghoulish Green Apple, Citrus Scream, Shocking Lime, Rattled Raspberry, and Spine-Tingling Tangerine.

The packaging elements of energy info, quantity info, flavor info, random text, and size info remain high at 3.15, 4.25, 3.56, 3.07, 3.05, meaning the time to discovery wasn’t as good. However, the respondents discovered the pack character, brand name, and the product shot pretty easily, as indicated by the stopping power of 1.45, 0.63, and 1.46.

Similarly, the earned attention remains the best for the brand name and the product shot as the holding power remains relatively high at 1 and 2.75.

Wrigley’s Halloween Special Skittles

The next in line is Wrigley’s Halloween special with a pack comprising Skittles red image, lifesavers gummies image, starburst, Skittles pink, and energy info. As per Entropik’s emotion report, the overall holding power remains the strongest at 8.73, and the persuasion levels also stay solid at 25.64.

The stopping power for most elements, including lifesavers gummies image, starburst, Skittles pink, pack character skeleton, quantity mention, and energy info, stayed under 2, depicting a good time to discovery.

Snickers’s Halloween Peanut Brownie

In an exciting launch from Snickers, the New Snickers Peanut Brownie Chocolate packs a comforting, freshly baked brownie coupled with the satisfaction of Snickers Candy Bars. Moreover, the candies are adorned with spooky packaging.

The stopping power for product info, brand name, and product shot remained relatively low at 1.49, 1.06, and 1.85. In parallel, fun-size info and pack graphics had a larger time to discovery, depicted by the high stopping power of 3.26 and 2.23, respectively.

Mars Candy Assorted Mix

This Halloween season, Mars has floored assorted individually wrapped variety mix bags of Twix Cookie Bars, Milky Way, Snickers Bars, and 3 Musketeers. The wildly popular chocolate bars come bearing spooky seasonal packaging as the perfect candy bowls fillers.

Mars Candy Mix bags a strong holding power of 8.06 as the pack characters earned good attention, indicated by the solid holding power of 3.58. The persuasion levels chalk up high with a closing power of 25.10.

Here, interestingly, the brand names of Twix, Musketeers, Milky Way, and Snickers stay more or less close at 2.27, 2.22, 2.16, and 2.56. However, M&M garners a better time to discovery with a stopping power of 1.73.

AirHeads

The blue-colored, washed-out pack donning a smiley face balloon from AirHeads hasn’t fared as well with respondents. As the emotion insights unveil, the pack graphics. Emotion insights unveil that the packaging has the lowest holding power at 5.49 as the pack fails to earn respondents’ attention.

The dissociating packaging makes it hard for respondents to hold their gaze at any element as depicted by the relatively poor holding power of pack graphics, product shot, energy info, quantity info, brand name, quantity info main, brand name 1 at 1.25, 0.84, 0.09, 0.16, 0.55, 0.1, and 0.21.

Hershey’s Halloween Special Reese

Advertising with a one-of-a-kind hands-free trick-or-treating experience, Hershey launched its latest offering packing milk chocolate, peanut butter, pumpkin, and ghost and bats flavors.

With the lowest closing power at 20.27 and below-average holding power of 7.78, the packaging doesn’t fare well with the respondents. The low holding power for most elements, including Reese’s pumpkin pack, ghost pack, product shots, ingredients info, size and shape text, product quantity weight info, and energy calories info, can be owed to a consistent and rather drab design across the pack.

Hershey Kitkat Witch’s Brew

Donning an enchanting look and witch-inspired theme in the magical shades of green and purple, Hershey’s limited-edition Kitkat Witch’s Brew packs have crisp wafers loaded with marshmallow-flavored crème.

Here, the brand name and product shots garner a relatively higher holding power at 1.81 and 1.54. The snack size text, product info weight, and energy calories info have a large time to discovery with a stopping over of 4.01, 4.21, and 4.22. However, the closing power (persuasion levels) remains high at 30.03.

Hershey’s Cookies n Crème Fangs

Hershey’s spooky cookie treat called ‘Cookies’ nʼ Creme Halloween Fangs’ packs the classic recipe with eerie yet adorable shapes. The perfectly snackable crunchy cookie pieces with a fierce fang imprint don a white and blue colored packaging.

Despite an out-of-box packaging design featuring fangs, the overall holding power for the pack remains low at 6.61, whereas the closing power is high at 28.26. The brand name, product type, and pack character have a good stopping power of 1.07, 1.49, and 1.15.

Flix Candy Day Of The Dead

Designed for popping up on “day of the dead” parties, these sugar skull candies are packaged with popping colors and scary visage.

The innovative packaging earns respondents’ attention with a strong holding power of 8.6 and a closing power of 24.47. However, the stopping power for the day of the dead text, flavor type, and weight quantity info remains at 2.34, 2.59, and 4.12. The holding power for pack character skeleton and product type remains close at 1.43 and 1.38.

‘Peek-a-Boo’

So, what happens when you combine excellent packaging design with a winning candy? Well, brands can engage more customers and usher in sales.

Gauge packaging design efficacy against your competitor brand packages to improve noticeability and pick-up rate. Measure closing and stopping power of your packaging, holding power of your products, on-shelf noticeability, pack’s visual appeal, and persuasiveness to lift the results!

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