Beforehand, the tactics of taking advantage of the holiday season for marketing purposes were merely trivial, and didn't become involved in the existential quandry of life.  Now, things are a little different.

They say shock your audience with killer headlines, play on the subconscious double entendre of somebody "making a killing."  Seriously though, I understand that it's supposed to be subliminal...like a brick to the face.  But now it's embedded within the concious sense of things.  Changing your social icons to pumpkins, creating 'spooky' calls-to-action to mind-numbingly entice your audience, creating entire campaigns based around a time of month that most people ignore anyway.  

Not only this; but it also encourages other social media users who seem to find the holiday a little too good to partake in the festivities: dressing up and taking mirror photos in a competition to look either the bloodiest or the sluttiest (guilty on the former), and making some of the lamest Halloween puns known to human history (Despite it being I still couldn't keep my writing down to the bare bones.  Come on Twitter, you're better than that)!  I go to Nottingham Rock City covered in fake blood and a ripped t-shirt, I feel nothing but depression that social protocol dictates my dressing like this, and I'm further aggrivated by the same yellow hued photos that are the bathroom costume pictures.

Yes, Halloween is the time to watch scary films and enjoy the frightful times, I fully encourage this activity; but call me the Scrooge of Halloween because in my capacity as a copywriter I see nothing but pure terror in traditional marketing, that's made a multitude of times worse by the constant bombardment of the stuff that social media provides.

Expect something like this near Christmas time as well.  Happy Halloween