This year, PVR INOX has also curated a line of movies for cinema enthusiasts to celebrate this eerie occasion like never before by announcing the Halloween Film Festival. From 27th October to 2nd November, PVR INOX will host a Halloween Film Festival across select multiplexes.

Many e-commerce platforms have also played around with their user interface to make the consumers experience the spooky vibes of Halloween.

Since parties are such a big part of the festival, alco-bev brands can't afford to sleep on it. Barcadi India, for instance, is hosting Halloween parties across various cities and will be activating a marketing initiative at over 250+ outlets across 14 cities in the country.

Even OTT platforms such as Netflix, and Disney+Hotstar among others have curated a Halloween-special content lineup for the Indian audience during this time of the year.

Under the West's spell

Sameeksha Uniyal, Brand Lead - Brand Bacardi (India & SEA) said that social media has exposed Indians to global festivals and Halloween is one of them. She said, “It was not that big a few years ago but when we did it for the first time, the response was fabulous and the GenZ's were excited about it.

"This builds a connection It has become an important event in how we bring and keep GenZs and even people together. Everyone gets excited about new experiences and since this is still catching up, people are open to it."

Viren Razdan, Managing Director, Brand-comics, opined that the last decade has witnessed a transformative impact on our social, cultural and habits, largely driven by global media and entertainment. He noted that Western festivals - with low to no understanding, have quickly become social occasions. "Halloween is a great example of shallow understanding but quick ramping up on the social trend charts," he said.

Naturally, marketers have been quick to read this underlying change. "They have aggressively adapted to this tune to create these occasions. Valentine’s Day a decade ago had few coy takers but is now a full-blown multi-level marketing campaign with all categories jumping into the bandwagon," he pointed out.

To explain how festivals like Halloween are making their way into the Indian way of life, Lloyd Mathias, brand expert, named the major factors: increased globalisation, international travel and social media. "A couple of generations ago, the bulk of Indian consumers lived within the Indian geography. Now, there is so much more mobility, people are moving overseas, they're travelling, and they've got friends and relatives abroad," Mathias noted.

"Thanks to social media, a lot of these festivals are being amplified globally. It started way back with Valentine's Day and now Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Halloween, a lot of these festivals are beginning to be picked up and celebrated globally.”

Sumanto Chattopadhyay, former Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, 82.5 Communications, Ogilvy Group, and independent creative spoke about this opportunity for brands to capitalize on. He said, “For brands, this is simply a ready-made opportunity to sell more merchandise. Remember that Christmas celebrations as we know Coke popularised them in the US. Similarly, marketers in India will embrace not just our traditional festivals but the foreign ones as well -to piggyback on them to raise the salience of their brands and to make their cash registers ring”, he added.

Most of the Halloween marketing is targeted at millennials and the Genz who have grown up consuming Western content on TV and OTT. They are more familiarised with Western festivals than the cohorts that came before.

GenZs are also becoming power purchasers, making brands latch on to them during these festivals, said Uniyal. She added, “As GenZs are early jobbers as well and are going to stay longer with the brand, brands are starting to get them.”

Sharing his view on why India is so keen on celebrating such festivals, especially the GenZ, Chattopadhyay said, “Thanks to the international programming that GenZ watches, they have become familiar with Western festivals like Halloween. English-medium schools have also started celebrating these holidays.”

“Gen Z’s are the primary audience but not to forget millennials as well, because millennials are also bigger spenders," reminded Mathias. "Gen Z’s are younger, and therefore they have a limited spending potential. Riding on these festivals allows for a wide range. I would say Gen Z's yes, but certainly a lot of millennials are also being targeted.”

One may think Halloween has takers only in Indian cities, but small towns have also been taking a fancy to the spooky fest. Industry experts said that internet penetration has helped in fanning the flames of Halloween.

Talking about the mediums through which brands reach their target audience and how it is penetrating smaller markets, Samit Sinha, Founder and Managing Partner at Alchemist Brand Consulting, says, “The principal medium to reach GenZ is the smartphone and on platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat as well as on OTT channels. Smartphones are fairly ubiquitous in India and have high penetration even in the lower-tier towns and even some of the relatively prosperous villages.”