What it had to solve
Agency Kamp Grizzly asked Great Guns USA for a short, scary movie about running out of candy on Halloween, with $1 million of discount codes embedded in it.
The idea
Treat running out of candy on Halloween as a real horror premise, and shoot it as a genuine genre short with promo codes hidden inside.
How it works
Dan Trachtenberg, director of '10 Cloverfield Lane' and 'Prey', cut quick shocks against slow tension to fit horror into a few minutes. A candy-as-blood shot was solved on set with a forced-perspective ramp, and masks were by Alec Gillis.
What it did
The material reports no views or sales figures, only that the spot carried $1 million worth of discount codes.
Background
For Halloween 2022, Uber Eats joined Keke Palmer and Great Guns USA on 'Don't Run Out', a horror short embedded with $1 million worth of discount codes. Agency Kamp Grizzly's brief was a short, scary movie about running out of candy on Halloween.
The spot follows three friends who realise on Halloween night that they are low on candy. Palmer's character tells how one family vanished after the same thing happened, then rushes to order more on Uber Eats just as the power goes out. Each friend is then pursued by a masked figure in the shadows.
Director Dan Trachtenberg faced the challenge of condensing suspense into a few minutes, which he did by mixing quick shocks with slow tension-building scenes and economical editing by David Trachtenberg. One shot had a pumpkin-masked attacker smash Tyler Ritter's face, releasing what looks like blood but is red candy, and the crew used a faux-floor ramp and forced perspective to get it.
Why it lands
A real horror director and genre references gave horror fans something to watch and spot, instead of a commercial wearing a costume.
The scare is a relatable emergency, running out of candy, that connects directly to the delivery service.
Hiding discount codes in the film tied the entertainment to a reason to order.
What you can take
Hiring a real genre director for a small joke premise makes the ad worth watching for its craft, and the offer can ride along inside it.
Since then
LBB's Oct 2022 report is the only source in the material and gives no results beyond the $1 million of codes.
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