Found in millions of Canadian homes, WD-40 is the iconic go-to for all things creaky. But it often goes unused for months. So we wanted to find a way to get people thinking about their creaky doors and WD-40 again. Our foot in the door? Halloween.
Halloween is Canadians’ third favourite holiday. And on that special night, the average door opens over 50 times.
So what better way to bring WD-40 top of mind than to hijack the one night people actually want creaky doors?
Our idea? WD-40’s Haunted Door: A motion-activated sound-effects app with scary creaks on the busiest night of the year for front doors.
To use the app, people simply selected their favourite of three creaky-door sounds and hung their phone on the inside door handle using our mailer. Every time the door opened for trick-or-treaters, the phone's accelerometer triggered the haunting creaky-door sound. And if people didn’t get the mailer, they could hang any bag on their door handle instead.
The app itself is simple in design, but meticulously executed. Even the details of the skull are made up of items that require WD-40. And the door sound names themselves are a nod to familiar horror flicks, The Exdoorcist, Paradoormal Activity, Door of the Dead.
With 57 million earned impressions and covered by over 100 media outlets, we got over 1.4 million dollars in earned media coverage. All of this in just five days and one special night.