Halloween comes with an App

Getting customers through the doors around holidays gives retailers plenty of headache. Competition is ramping up visuals and discounting prices while consumers are ever more pickier with price tags and quality. On the other hand holidays present an opportunity to differentiate, to put your store up there in a brighter light (or dimmer, it depends); an inch better, faster, smarter than your neighbour and for this reason, securing place in the cloud sounds like a good strategy now more than ever.


Since Halloween is just around the corner, I was wondering how retailers are taking advantage of the festive atmosphere. Forget about economic hardships, this year 7 in 10 Americans for example plan to celebrate Halloween and spend on it slightly more too, the National Retail Federation(USA) and BIGresearch tell us. So let`s get down to the Halloween buzz hunting the web and ultimately to the most courageous players to engage all those innocent souls with the wicked mobile while capitalizing on virtual skeletons, pumpkins and cob webs :-E.

Target
Retail giant Target aims to boost sales through mobile display and audio ads in store or mobile commerce-enabled site. Ads appear on Pandora`s iPhone app. 

Photo courtesy www.mobilemarketer.com, read more  at http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/11311.html

Tesco

Not too far behind, across the pond, Tesco is using Facebook to tempt fans with a temporary, pop-up shop that offers discounts up to 20% for Halloween merchandise. What is there not to like? I was late in checking it out, but you can read more about it on Paul Marsden`s blog, where he goes deeper in the issue of Facebook`s power to convert fans into customers.

House of Horror 

My personal fav, the House of Horrors aggregates all the spookiness in one place and lets you watch it.The app gives you access to over 100 classic public domain horror films streamed on your device, featuring best silver screen horror actors, actresses and directors. 

The beverage industry 
Here is a little trick how to spicy up the drinks menu. Pictures speak for themselves, I guess one has to first have a plain one, before browsing what `s on offer:

The Fashion spot
Holiday costumes are n`t really representative for the clothing industry, but the idea is the same: ease up the buying experience and tempt the window and the screen shoppers by getting your last collection on an app. Follow the example of BuyCostumes.com and read more on Paul Demery`s post at internet retailer. 

Moboline says: You can check out a good selection of top 10 spooky Halloween apps on appolicious, as well as watch TheWiseMathew`s review of top 2011 Halloween apps.

Happy Halloween ;)