The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024
Facebook Marketplace lists genuinely haunted items to prove anything can be found there
To re-engage Gen Z at Halloween, Facebook turned Marketplace into The Haunted Marketplace, where America's most haunted houses listed genuinely haunted items.
What it had to solve
Gen Z believed Facebook was where their parents shared life updates, and missed that Facebook Marketplace hides one-of-a-kind treasures. The campaign needed to re-engage them during the spooky holiday by tapping their love of the paranormal.
How it works
To Gen Z, Facebook looked like the place where their parents shared life updates — so they never noticed that Facebook Marketplace is filled with hidden treasures and one-of-a-kind items. The campaign set out to close that gap during Halloween, a holiday Gen Z already loves.
Facebook Marketplace turned into The Haunted Marketplace: some of the most notoriously haunted houses in America listed genuinely haunted items for sale. The stunt tapped Gen Z's love for the paranormal and brought supernatural authenticity back to the spooky holiday.
By making the listings real rather than theatrical, the campaign proved that truly anything can be found on Marketplace while re-engaging Gen Z with Facebook. The work is archived in D&AD's awards archive.
Why it lands
- It made the brand promise testable: if genuinely haunted objects are listed, 'anything can be found here' stops being a claim.
- Real haunted houses gave the listings a credibility no fictional spooky campaign could match.
- Anchoring the idea in Halloween and the paranormal gave Gen Z a reason to look at Facebook they did not have before.
What it did
The campaign showed that truly anything can be found on Marketplace and re-engaged Gen Z with Facebook; the work is archived in D&AD's awards archive.
What you can take
If breadth is your message, demonstrate it with the least believable listing you can honestly offer — a real 'anything' beats any claim of anything, and the audience's own obsession supplies the tone.
Since then
The Haunted Marketplace is archived in D&AD's awards archive as an example of a platform proving the breadth of its inventory through real, one-of-a-kind listings rather than through marketing claims.
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