Friday 31 October 2025: PR & Marketing News Round-Up: Tricks, Treats & Terrifyingly Good Campaigns
It’s the end of the week, which means it’s time for Visible’s Friday PR & Marketing News Round-Up, where clever ideas and campaigns take centre stage. From Halloween happenings to headline-making campaigns, here’s how brands kept us all talking this week..
Virgin Media O2 & Stranger Things bring ‘The Upside Down’ to the high-street
Netflix partnered with Virgin Media O2 to transform eight flagship UK stores into immersive Stranger Things pop-ups, complete with alphabet-wall photo zones, 80s boomboxes, retro arcades and epic prize draws ahead of the release of the final season.
Why it matters for PR & Marketing: A Halloween-friendly activation like this is a great example of big budget crossover between entertainment and retail, showing how high-street spaces can double up as cultural stages, delivering fan-moments, shareable visuals and brand loyalty by giving consumers a memorable experience rather than just an ad.
Morrisons After Dark Ads - Pizza Transforms at Night
This week, UK supermarket Morrisons launched its Halloween pizza range via After Dark Ads. The clever OOH creative shifts after sunset using light-sensitive tech to reveal vampire fingers, ghostly flames and product names like ‘Vampire Slayer Pizza’.
Why it matters for PR & Marketing: This is seasonal marketing with a twist, by leaning into the Halloween spirit, and turning passive adverts into transformative experiences. In doing so, the supermarket leverages consumer emotion, novelty and timing. It’s a stark reminder to marketers that clever tech and timely themes can achieve standout OOH.
Fanta’s Secret Marketing Weapon: Letting Audiences Hold the Mic
Fanta’s latest brand campaign explores how virality has become its most powerful marketing tool. By putting creative control in the hands of its audience, Fanta has embraced chaos, spontaneity, and shareability, letting fans remix, reinterpret, and amplify its message in unpredictable ways that feel fresh and authentic.
Why it matters for PR & Marketing: Fanta’s approach here highlights the growing power of audience-driven creativity and everyone’s favourite buzzword of the moment, authenticity. By trusting consumers to co-create and play with brand assets, Fanta has transformed participation into advocacy, showing that the best marketing moments often come from the people, not the plan.
Iconography Meets Activism with Everyone Hates Elon’s Freddie Mercury Billboard
A striking new billboard in Liverpool featuring Freddie Mercury and the slogan ‘THANK GOD FOR IMMIGRANTS’ has gone viral this week. Created by the art-activism collective Everyone Hates Elon, the campaign celebrates immigrant contributions to British culture, while sparking debate around identity, belonging and representation.
Why it matters for PR & Marketing: Using one of the most beloved music icons of all time, the work blends pop culture with political commentary, proving how simple yet provocative creative can ignite nationwide conversation both online and offline. This campaign shows how bold visual statements can move beyond traditional ad formats and spark cultural conversation.
Final Thoughts
From immersive partnerships and inventive OOH strategies to purpose-led creativity and audience-driven virality, this week’s round-up highlights how the most effective campaigns are rooted in cultural understanding and timing. Whether through bold visuals, emotional resonance or smart cross-industry collaborations, brands that align creativity with audience insight continue to drive real impact and conversation.
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