How Six Flags is making ads for ‘real horror fans’

For the second year in a row, the theme park has teamed up with ad agency TMA. Its chief creative officer, Harris Wilkinson, says the audience for horror is growing; just look at how streaming services like Netflix now curate films into “Halloween” sections. And that’s quickly translated into marketing. While many brands are rolling out Halloween-themed campaigns, Wilkinson says most (wrongly) put a seasonal bow on standard advertising. “That’s not enough for real horror fans,” he says.

“The long-form approach is the only way to satisfy this audience. Instead of a couple of cheap thrills and a lot of product messaging, we’re creating an immersive experience that builds a sense of dread for the viewer and emulates the utterly immersive experience you’ll find in the parks. And you simply can’t deliver that within the confines of a thirty-second commercial.”

Wilkinson acknowledges that long-form ads aren’t always the norm in the age of TikTok. “We’re constantly hearing consumers have fractured attention spans, but the truth is, long form’s having a huge resurgence—especially for Gen Z,” he adds.

“They’ll engage if they’re entertained. And that’s the key. An eight-minute piece that’s all about a brand is just a brutally long commercial. But an eight-minute horror film with a unique storyline and creature? That’s true branded entertainment, which has a very long shelf life, and can ultimately reach audiences anywhere in the world.”

Another consideration is that guests who visit Six Flags at night this time of year are horror fanatics. “We needed to create a scary, shocking, and above all, immersive experience that gives you a taste of the dread and scares you’ll find in the parks.

And we know it works. This year, over 55% of the people our post reached watched the video. That’s an astonishing result for social media, when 15% is considered a highly successful benchmark.”

With horror being such a vast genre, the creative team faces tough choices in deciding which tone to take each year. Last year, the story was packed with jump scares, a classic horror trope, which gave it a fun feel and culminated in a comedic twist.

This year, Wilkinson explains, Six Flags has amped up the fear factor, and the new work had to reflect that.

“They are leveraging incredible IP, like Saw, The Conjuring franchise, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Those franchises don’t have comedic twists. They’re hardcore horror, and the brand wanted guests to know that Six Flags is the scariest and most immersive Halloween experience you can find anywhere,” he says.

“To match that, we shifted tone dramatically. There are no jokes in this year’s film, and the end is anything but a comedic twist. We were inspired by A24’s horror canon and set out to create a moody, sound-driven nightmare, with life-or-death stakes for the characters. And inside that world, we wanted to create a dimensional, haunting, and hopefully completely fresh monster in Smiley.”

Smiley, this year’s beast, is an eerie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style character who lurks in the shadows, luring people into the darkness. It’s true creepy horror at its finest. Wilkinson explains that this year’s piece is “much moodier” with a “darker, more arthouse” horror vibe.

For Wilkinson and his team, conversations about Six Flags’ Halloween spot start in the spring. By the end of June, they had their first full presentation with the client. “We started at the thematic level, and once everyone aligned on ‘Come Out and Play’, we shared the script,” he explains.

“To be honest, we weren’t sure how everyone would react to our face-stealing monster and the dark ending, but they were on board right away, and really supportive of the vision from start to finish.”

Budgets this year were tight. The campaign also needed to include assets that leveraged the parks’ IP offerings. The creatives learned in early summer that they would also need an agnostic commercial to showcase the scare zones, mazes, scare actors, and even seasonal food.

Since the commercial would shoot in the park, it would significantly cut into the budget for the long-form piece. Simply put, it was going to be tight. Bringing the spook factor to life isn’t without its challenges.

“Halloween has such iconic accouterments – pumpkins, costumes, fog, the list goes on and on – that it’s easy to set the stage for the audience,” says Wilkinson.

“What’s harder is creating interesting and unique visuals within such a familiar world. I believe between the ‘honey pot’ wooden duck, Smiley’s mask collection, and his pure, naked self, we’ve created some of our own iconic Halloween touches to add to the mix.”

Logistically, the shoot was challenging, with so many setups and an enormous park. Additionally, on the first day of filming, the park had been open and only closed a few hours before they wrapped.

“While we raced from one setting to the next, grabbing b-roll on the way, we also had to try and keep Smiley hidden,” says Wilkinson.

“When he walked through the park, we had an entourage flanking him on all sides and keeping him covered in tarps. And when we were shooting the bookends underneath a roller coaster, a line of guests appeared behind us and started taking pics and video. But we were able to keep Smiley mostly out of view.”

From all the references made in these films, it’s clear that everyone in the creative team is a true fan of the genre. Though that’s not necessarily true for the wider agency. “Screening these films internally is always a cruel experiment to see who screams first,” he laughs. “We probably should stop doing that, but it is fun.”

Each project brings a new challenge to the TMA team in how to keep it fresh but still remain true to a genre whose fans are fully invested.

“Luckily for us, horror movies have a lot of sub-genres,” Wilkinson explains. “And when you add to that the parks’ varied and unique experiences, you have a really big sandbox of storytelling to play in. No matter how many of these we do, I promise each one will be wholly unique.”