Snapchat Brings Back Phantom House Series With Maybelline, State Farm

Snapchat is bringing back its Halloween-themed content series, Phantom House, according to details shared with Marketing Dive. Maybelline New York, State Farm and Hulu are among those advertising around the second installment. Advertising from the brands involved will include custom creator content, augmented reality (AR) Lenses, Snap Video Ads and more. Additionally, Snap will create AR Lenses themed around each of the Phantom House episodes, which could help attract key audiences. 

Phantom House includes four episodes that feature Snap Story compilations in which a handful of creators navigate various eerie worlds. Creators involved in the latest iteration include Tue Nguyen, Jake Koehler, Rachel Levin and Caryn Marjorie.

Halloween seems to represent a key opportunity for Snapchat, as indicated by the social media platform’s choice to bring back its Phantom House series. In creating last year’s Phantom House, Snap cited research indicating that 80% of the platform’s users planned to use the app during Halloween. This year, U.S. Snapchatters are at least two times more likely to anticipate spending more this Halloween versus last year, per data cited in release details. 

The effort shows additional signs of potential, with Halloween campaigns on the platform reporting a significant lift in brand awareness, ad awareness and action intent, according to research from Kantar MarketNorms that was commissioned by Snap and cited in details around last year’s Phantom House activation. That explains why Maybelline is returning as a second-season sponsor of Phantom House and why State Farm and Hulu have signed on. 

“Halloween is a key moment for discovery in the beauty industry, and Maybelline celebrates all opportunities for people to step out of their comfort zone and express themselves,” said Jessica Feinstein, Maybelline’s senior vice president of marketing, in a statement.

Maybelline’s activation this year will involve branded content that will be integrated into a Phantom House episode. The brand will also utilize custom creator content, as well as an immersive AR Lens, commercials and Snap Ads. 

On State Farm’s end, the insurance company will launch its own AR Lens and leverage commercials and Snap Ads. Hulu will use an AR Lens, commercials and Snap Video Ads to complement its annual Huluween campaign, which promotes the streamer’s library of Halloween-themed content, along with its new Hulu Originals film, “Carved.” 

To further boost fan engagement, Snap worked with Atomic Digital Design to create four AR Lenses that will be themed to each Phantom House episode. The Lenses will include features like real-time morphing of Snapchatters faces, pet tracking and contextualized dynamic 3D animation. The Lenses will take fans into the episodes’ worlds, with imagery including a zombie-infested freezer and demon dogs.

The first episode of Phantom House’s second season is currently available for Snapchat users via Phantom House’s public profile. Subsequent episodes will drop every Tuesday.

Snap in the second quarter saw a 16% year-over-year increase in revenue for a total of $1.23 million, per its latest earnings release. The platform also reported a total of 432 million daily active users during the period, an increase of 36 million versus the year-ago period.