Too Dark?: Fanta Western Europe
Over three years, I led the creative direction and strategy for Fanta’s new Halloween charter across Western Europe, turning Halloween into Fanta’s Christmas and establishing the brand as the drink of the scary season.
The third chapter was the darkest. We introduced Fanta Dark Orange through a provocative creative idea exploring the boundaries of fear and taste.
Every lens pushed technical limits on Snapchat, including Face Peel, Demon, Smoky Ghost, and an AR creature on pack... all these were Snapchat technical firsts.
The campaign was supported by social films I directed for Snapchat and Instagram, drawing on cultural tropes from the horror movie genre, and amplifying the sense of transgression and identity-play that teens crave at Halloween.
Too Dark? capped the trilogy with a sustained 9% sales uplift and deep brand–occasion linkage, alongside our earlier successful seasons (Distort Reality and Fantamorphosis) helping cement Fanta’s ownership of Halloween among teens to deliver consistent commercial growth across Western Europe. The 3-year programme also became one of Snapchat’s most successful branded activations ever and set new creative–tech standards for the platform.
This finale was shockingly effective: brand, culture, and technology transmogrified and mutated to make Halloween Fanta’s own.