In this blog—I’m going to break down what you can learn about website design & marketing from the Halloweentown movie franchise.
You’ll learn:
- Why your website can’t look like the grey spell was cast on it 🎨
- What things can make your website design confusing 💻
- Ways to avoid pivoting your business the wrong way 👻
- How not to miss the bus back to Halloweentown before midnight 🚌
(Never watched Halloweentown before or need a refresh? Click here, here, here & here for the summaries.)
Let’s start with the marketing & launch for all 4 Halloweentown movies.
The first movie released in the franchise, Halloweentown, was released in October of 1998 (making this year the 25th anniversary 🎉).
And YES—finally a Halloween movie premiere in October!
Disney was smart with this series of films & ALL 4 Halloweentown movies premiered in October (1998, 2001, 2004 & 2006 respectively).
One thing that made the marketing different for this movie is that it premiered on Disney channel instead of movie theaters. <<< Meaning that instead of trying to get people to buy movie tickets, it was more geared toward getting people to sit in front of their TVs on a certain day & time (ahhh…the days before streaming).
And that might be why compared to Disney’s other Halloween movies, the first 3 Halloweentown received good ratings—BUT the 4th movie, Return to Halloweentown, is another story.
For the 4th & final (as of now) movie, Disney decided to recast the main actress for basically no reason.
The audience who would’ve watched the movie was already warmed up to the current cast—so when the new actress stepped in & played Marnie VERY differently from the OG one, needless to say, the fans were (and still aren’t) happy.
Now while that kind of pivot may not work for a movie—that’s where business can be a little different.
If you’ve been in business for more than two seconds you’ve probably had to be nimble & pivot something in your business (2020 anyone?).
YOU CAN change things in your business as it grows—but you need to warm your audience up to said changes first.
Let me give you an example, let’s say that you’re a copywriter & one day decide you want to pivot your business to brand design.
In this scenario, if you suddenly said “Hey, can I design a logo for you?” you’d probably shock your audience.
But to fix this issue, you could create content surrounding brand design alongside your copywriting tips & slowly peter off offering your copywriting services.
Now to give a more dramatic example, let’s say you’re a copywriter who now wants to run a gardening blog.
In the first example the two industries overlap, so it makes sense to just pivot your business because the niches complement each other. But in the second example, it’s a 180-degree turn from what you’re doing right now—so you’ll probably want to just start a new business.
Bottom line: If you want to change your business to something dramatically new—pivot slowly enough that your ideal clients can keep up AND if the change is to a new industry that is very different than what you’re doing right now, consider starting a new business instead of pivoting.
And to finish off this blog…
Here are some notable quotes & plot points from the script of Halloweentown that can help you with your website design & marketing.
Quotes: Aggie Cromwell: “Being normal is vastly overrated.” & Marnie Piper: “Why are you turning grey?” Luke: “Everybody’s doing it.”
Business Lesson: That first quote is arguably the best line from the Halloweentownmovies AND the same thing is true about your website. You don’t want a website that causes you to blend in with your industry peers grey spell-style. <<< And the most common thing that’ll make your website look the same, is using a similar color palette. I mean if I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen a neutral, (aka. boring—like the grey spell that gets cast in the second movie) website that is made up of mostly beige, charcoal grey & white…I could probably afford to build a theme park based on the Halloweentown movies (*runs to add this to my bucket list*). Now I could go into a long drawn-out discussion about color psychology (which is important), BUT basically, you want to make sure that your brand color palette is different than your virtual next-door business neighbor.
Quote: Dylan Piper: “What’s going on here?” Marnie Piper: “I have no idea.”
Business Lesson: This ^^^ is the reaction you’ll get from your website visitors if your website is confusing (kind of like when Marnie & Dylan ride the bus to Halloweentown for the first time). And what makes a confusing website you ask? Here are some examples: it’s hard to navigate & find what you need, it’s got a lot of clutter (i.e. Gort’s house in the second movie) & not enough white space, the copywriting doesn’t make it clear what you do, etc.—when in doubt keep it simple.
Your action step:
Analyze if your website color palette is too boring & grey (hint: if you have to ask yourself that, it could be a sign your colors are bland)—here’s how:
- Scope out the websites of entrepreneurs that you consider to be your main competitors. Make a note of what colors they’re using on their website & consider avoiding them.
- Look at websites that are for businesses in a completely different industry than you & observe what you like & don’t like about their brand colors.
- Stay away from colors you don’t like. <<< This is my #1 mistake with my branding. I really don’t like the color pink but somehow a shade of magenta or coral keeps ending up in my branding. This has made me at times not very excited to use my brand colors because I simply won’t like them.
