The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
Uber Eats turns horror-film quotes into promo codes — 44% new users, WARC Grand Prix
Uber Eats turned horror movie quotes into candy promo codes, gaining 2M applications and 44% new grocery users.
Uber Eats (Uber)
What it had to solve
Americans spend over $12B on Halloween, and competing retailers and delivery apps fight for candy shoppers with forgettable codes like TRICKORTREAT and SPOOKY10. Uber Eats was known for restaurant delivery, not grocery and retail, and needed awareness and trial for the newer categories.
How it works
Halloween is a $12B US occasion, but the retailers and delivery apps fighting for candy shoppers all used the same forgettable promo codes — TRICKORTREAT, SPOOKY10. Uber Eats, associated with restaurant delivery rather than grocery and retail, had new categories to build and an event it was missing. Rather than out-shout the other codes, Rethink decided to make the code itself worth finding.
The agency partnered with four Hollywood studios to license the IP of 10 horror films of the last 50 years and turned their most famous quotes into Uber Eats promo codes for candy — The Sixth Sense's 'I see dead people', Saw's 'Do you want to play a game?'. The twist: each day before Halloween, a word puzzle appeared across digital OOH formats — motion posters, transit displays, LED billboards in multiple cities — and solving it revealed the day's quote-code, which unlocked a 60% discount on candy.
The mechanism turned the promotion into a hunt. Uber Eats generated over 10,000 organic social engagements and 96.3 million impressions on its own ad surfaces; 290,000 promo code applications came in on day one and 2 million by Halloween night; 44% of the users were new to Uber Eats grocery and retail. Uber Eats called it the most successful promo code campaign the division had ever run.
The work then travelled the effectiveness circuit: a 2024 One Show Bronze Pencil and the Customer Experience Grand Prix at the WARC Awards for Effectiveness 2025, the award that judges campaigns on measurable commercial impact. Horror Codes became the standard demonstration that a functional mechanic — a discount code — can be the creative itself rather than the collateral for one.
Why it lands
- It made a boring functional mechanic — the promo code — the creative canvas, so every use of the code was a moment of engagement, not a transaction.
- The IP licensing gave the codes cultural weight: horror fans recognised the quotes and wanted to find them before anyone else did.
- The daily puzzle built a scarcity loop running up to Halloween, converting a one-day event into a countdown people chose to participate in.
- It attacked the exact gap — grocery and retail awareness — with a mechanic tied to the occasion (candy), so the 44% new users arrived in the category being built.
What it did
Over 10,000 organic social engagements and 96.3 million impressions on Uber ad surfaces; 290,000 promo code applications on day one, reaching 2 million by Halloween; 44% of users were new to Uber Eats grocery and retail — the most successful promo code campaign the division had ever run. It won a 2024 One Show Bronze Pencil and the Customer Experience Grand Prix at the WARC Awards for Effectiveness 2025.
What you can take
Don't make the ad the idea — make the functional object the idea: a promo code people had to hunt for worked better than any poster, because using it was the experience.
Since then
Horror Codes closed the loop at the awards stage: a One Show Bronze Pencil in 2024 and the Customer Experience Grand Prix at the WARC Awards for Effectiveness 2025, which juries effect and commercial impact. The campaign is the reference case for 'promo code as owned media' — the voucher was the entertainment, the hunt was the campaign — and its numbers (290,000 applications on day one, 2 million by Halloween, 44% new users) are the ones effectiveness coverage cites. For Uber Eats it delivered a repeatable pattern of playful, mechanic-led seasonal promotions for its grocery and retail unit.
Sources
- Uber Eats | Horror Codes | 2024 One Show Award Entry
- Uber Eats – Horror Codes
- India, the Netherlands, Spain and USA Win Grand Prix at WARC Awards 2025
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