The ambition to own a holiday outright is not new to the Coca-Cola Company, which has spent the better part of a century persuading Americans that Santa Claus prefers to refresh himself with a certain carbonated beverage. Now the company's orange-flavored sibling is attempting a similar feat with Halloween, though the path from regional pumpkin displays to global domination has taken rather longer than the sleigh ride to Christmas.

Fanta has been courting the spooky season for nearly a decade, an effort that culminated last year in its first worldwide Halloween campaign and a collaboration with the cast of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" that put Tim Burton's ghoulish creations on limited-edition cans. A 2025 partnership with Universal Studios and Blumhouse, featuring Chucky and M3gan, generated what the company described as more than one billion organic impressions before a single media dollar was spent.

This year, however, the brand has decided to stop borrowing and start building.

Working with WPP OpenX, the entertainment studio GRAiL, and the design firm ForPeople, Fanta has created three original characters — Haystacks, Drayk, and Howlie — that it intends to develop into what it calls the "Haunted Fanta Universe." Each creature will appear on its own can with a dedicated flavor, and more characters are promised in the coming years.

"We needed to have a way of building our own properties that we can invest in for many, many, many decades to come," said Ibrahim Khan, global vice president of marketing for Fanta at the Coca-Cola Company.

The strategy leans heavily on creators, who Mr. Khan credited with generating more than 100,000 pieces of content around last year's campaign. (Fanta made one ad; its fans made the rest.) This year, the brand has recruited influencers to dress as its new monsters, including one video in which the creator Payton King transforms into Howlie, a werewolf in a varsity jacket.

Whether three animated creatures can achieve the cultural permanence of, say, a red-suited gift-giver remains to be seen. Mr. Khan, for his part, is managing expectations.

"'Trying' is the operative word," he said.

Original story published in Adweek: "Fanta's Long Game for Halloween Starts With Creators and Original Characters"