Spooky ads attempt to scare up customers

Lets say youre in the mood for a blood-curdling horror flick.You take your seat at the cineplex, making sure youre a safe distance from the screenand peek out from behind your popcorn.

A man is gassing up his car when suddenlythe hose wraps around his legs, throws him into the airand crashes him down onto thecars hood. But wait a minute, this isnt the movie. You realize its an ad when the manis rescued from the evil gas pump by a Nissan.

Instead of using humour or sex to get our attention, a small subset of commercialsattempts to terrify us into watching. While the scary Nissan commercial ran in movietheatres, an even creepier ad for the remake of the movie Carrie ran on YouTube.

The coffee shop was outfitted with several stunt mechanisms that allowed the actress todemonstrate seemingly real telekinetic powers.And a hidden camera captured the reaction of customers.

In a2011 ad from the U.K., a woman walks through a deserted parking garage.Suddenly, a zombie child appears and follows her. When the woman isfinally locked safely inside her car, she looks up only to see the zombie staring at her through theglass.

But for simplifying terror down to its most basic, no one beats German soft drink makerK-Fee. In a1999 ad, we see a car moving along a winding road in an idyllic greencountryside.

For no reason at all, a hideous zombie pops onto the screen and scares the pantsoff us.

You may have noticed that most of these horror ads are aimed at Millennials, whoreliably respond to such shocking, tangential marketing concepts. But when theaudience is made up of more vulnerable people like children or seniors messagesthat create trauma may motivate unintended responses.

This 1973 message from the U.K.s Central Office of Information warned children of thedangers of careless behaviour around water.

The ad was so scary, many children reported never wanting to go swimming again.

So,as with humour and other attention-getting devices, marketers have to make sure horroris strategically balanced and carefully targeted, or its consequences could come backto haunt them.