With Halloween falling on a weekend this year, HEINEKEN UK is helping retailers to tap into one of the season’s biggest beer and cider trading moments with a seasonal extension of its Strongbow’s ‘Refreshing the Nation’ campaign, focusing on Strongbow Dark Fruit, the UK’s number one flavoured cider at Halloween. Launching from October 2026, the campaign aims to help retailers maximise cider sales in the build-up to the spooky season and maintain consumer excitement outside of the expected summer cider season.
Building on the success of last year’s "Spine-chilling Refreshment" campaign, the activity aims to supercharge consumers’ affinity with the brand at Halloween with a social media promotion, a Strongbow Dark Fruit 4-pack giveaway, and a university party sampling activity. The campaign will also include on-pack promotions, limited edition Halloween sleeves and supporting POS materials in select stores.
Halloween is the biggest trading week during the autumn season in value sales, in 2025 beer and cider sales reached £373m across grocery and convenience in the lead up to, and across the Halloween period. During the lead up to Halloween, Strongbow Dark Fruit over-indexes during this period with sales value increasing to 29 per cent, generating £463K in incremental spend for the brand between early October to early November 2025.
“Strongbow Dark Fruit has a natural fit to Halloween, and our seasonal campaign is designed to help retailers build excitement, increase visibility and keep cider front of mind for consumers beyond the summer months," said Max Wainwright, Brand Unit Director Cider.