Last year, NMI President, Navin Chand gave his thoughts on the spooky season and how it can relate to business creativity. We’re taking that same message and applying it to 2020 – as scary as it’s already been.
Halloween embodies everything that New Moon Ideas stand for – being fresh, exciting and thoughtful. It’s the one time that collectively folks young and old can use as an excuse to unleash their creative spirit, be celebrated for openly expressing themselves, encouraged to have fun and let loose for a moment. It’s freedom to be anything for a day. While Halloween is still our favourite holiday of the year, 2020 and Halloween as we know it looks different.
Aside from the devastating virus itself, we’re all very aware of the effects covid-19 has had on our daily routines, social activities and holidays. Halloween is no exception to this – in fact, this year has even more potential to express your imaginative side, even beyond the costumes. Folks all over Canada have been building contraptions to safely delivery candy to eager trick-or-treaters, cities are creating “candy drive-thrus” for families to collect festive goodie bags or drive-thru displays to get your adrenaline pumping. Parents are finding fun ways to keep spirits high while celebrating at home, and friends are staying close by throwing virtual horror movie viewing parties. We applaud the efforts and those who take this opportunity to get creative in so many ways.
Many people associate Halloween with strong emotions like fear, shock or terror. The interesting thing is how those emotions are both expected and embraced during this time. While everyone’s threshold and capacity for these things vary, it seems to be more generally accepted for this holiday in particular. There’s a reason being scared occasionally is good for you – it breaks the mental routines, creates a disruption in your patterns to make you stop and check your surroundings. Maybe it helps identify a need for change or allows you to see things from a different perspective (hello, 2020).
Sometimes that’s the kind of thinking you need with your marketing. It’s easy to give you the answer you’re looking for and there are a thousand agencies out there who can nod, oblige and send an invoice but that’s just not us. At New Moon Ideas, we embrace that Halloween spirit and strive to apply that kind of creative energy and belief that anything is possible to keeping our ideas fresh, exciting and thoughtful all year round. We want to make you stop and think, check your surroundings and see things from a different perspective – we call it soul marketing. Our passion is turning your customers into fans but the work is just a pivot to what you might already be doing. If that thought brings the same kind of anxious yet excited feeling you get for Halloween escapades, then you also know how going through with those ideas makes you feel alive.
Here is one of the best pieces of career advice Navin received years ago that continues to resonate and we find it appropriate to share today – simply put he was told, “If you’re not scaring us, then you’re not doing your job.” So, have you been scared by us yet?
Happy Halloween everyone and stay safe!