Innovation Spotlight: Fanta’s Haunted Collection

Welcome to Innovation Spotlight! Each month we’ll spotlight a brand that’s capitalizing on a current consumer trend with a new product innovation.

This month we researched Fanta’s Haunted Collection, a limited-edition Halloween range built around the brand’s own cast of original monsters — with Ghost Face from the Scream movies as its first guest star.

Read on to get our analysis of the product’s in-market potential, the audiences it appeals to, as well as what you can learn from it to innovate smarter.

Fanta’s Haunted Collection

Fanta has been showing up at Halloween for more than a decade. But this year the brand went the extra mile and built its own world with its own monsters.

In August, Fanta launched Fanta’s Haunted Universe, its first Halloween entertainment world, with a cinematic trailer and four original characters inspired by classic Halloween legends.

Days later it announced that Ghost Face — the mask made famous by the Scream franchise — would be the first ever guest character to join them, through a partnership with Fun World and Paramount+.

The result is five collectible can designs and one new flavor:

• Fanta Ghost Face Punch: a new limited-edition dark berry punch in a black can, caffeine free
• Fanta Orange, Fanta Orange Zero Sugar, Fanta Pineapple and Fanta Strawberry: the existing range, redressed in Haunted Universe artwork

Why is it interesting?

Halloween has become a full retail season, with spending in the US reaching $13.1 billion and nearly half of consumers (49%) starting their shopping in September or earlier.

For years, brands have evoked the spirit of Halloween by licensing someone else’s monsters. This season alone, Michael Myers appears on Voodoo Ranger’s Slasher IPA and Ghost Face turns up on Angry Orchard cider.

Fanta itself put Beetlejuice on cans in 2024 and a cast of Universal and Blumhouse horror icons on cans in 2025. But building original characters means Fanta owns the asset outright and can bring it back every year. It also means starting from zero recognition, which is exactly why Ghost Face is in the lineup to act as a recognizable face.

So what makes a seasonal collection work: the product inside, the packaging outside or the characters on it? Let's find out! Let’s find out!

Key takeaways

• In a limited edition, the packaging becomes the product. A limited edition is usually a packaging play. You give the product people already buy a new look for a few weeks and the novelty gets people excited. In that way you can avoid the reformulation cost or supply chain risk a full launch carries. Fanta is a great example of how well this can work. Four of the five cans hold drinks available all year and only Ghost Face Punch is a new flavor. Yet the collection lands a breakthrough potential of 98, driven by strong scores on both distinctiveness (85% vs. 71% norm) and advantage (62% vs. 47% norm). Comments about the design and the characters also outnumber comments about flavor. It’s the same pattern we found in our World Cup research, where limited-edition packs gave existing buyers a reason to reach for a familiar product at the moment it mattered. So if the packaging is what drives the response, it deserves the same testing and consumer validation as the recipe.

• Build your own characters for the long term but borrow familiar ones for the short term. Fanta’s ambition is to move “from collaborators to creators” and that’s why it has created its own Haunted Universe characters. But the characters are new — when people told us what they liked, Ghost Face came up a lot, while people struggled to identify the other four. Ghost Face also fronts the most-wanted can in the range (67%) and the one most people would pick up first (56%). His role in the lineup is as a face people already know, carrying the collection while the new characters build up recognition of their own. The longer-term issue is that he isn’t Fanta’s character and can be used by other brands — he's fronting Angry Orchard’s cider this same Halloween. So the trade-off is that borrowed recognition works fast, but anyone can rent the same face. Owning a season is a long-term game. You can lean on a familiar character initially, then put your own characters front and center once people know them. With time, they become brand assets nobody else can put on a can.

• A limited edition can be a door back into the brand. Ghost Face Punch is the reason people stop and look. But the signature Orange flavor is the one that climbs from third on appeal (64%) to second in what people would actually buy as their first choice (51%). As one person put it: “The cans looked cool and a couple flavors sounded like they would be good. Orange is what Fanta is good at to me.” And this is how the collection brings new people in, especially because a lot of these people aren’t Fanta drinkers. Only 36% of consumers had bought Fanta in the last two weeks, and 43% say they’d buy the Haunted Collection instead of their usual soda — most often instead of Sprite, Crush or Dr Pepper. The packaging pulls attention from outside the brand and the drink Fanta has always sold converts best.

What’s the potential?

We use two key measures to determine a product’s success in-market: breakthrough potential and trial potential. Trial potential measures a product’s purchase likelihood, while breakthrough potential measures:

1. How different a product is (distinctiveness)
2. How superior a product is compared to what’s already available in market (advantage)

Fanta’s Haunted Collection has a breakthrough potential of 98. This is driven by both distinctiveness (85% vs. 71% norm) and advantage (62% vs. 47% norm) scoring significantly above the norm, which means people see the product as different from other US soft drink innovations and better than them.

People aren’t put off by the price either. Trial potential barely moves once the price is shown — 94 unpriced to 89 priced, a gap of just 5 points. At $8.39 for a 12-pack, people are willing to pay what’s being asked and they see it as fair rather than cheap (only 9% said the price was lower than they expected, vs. 15% norm).

Who finds Fanta’s Haunted Collection most appealing?

Distinctiveness lands with everyone. Every group we looked at sits well above the norm: early adopters (93%), under-45s (88%), men (88%), women (83%). Even over-45s, the group least likely to buy, agree the cans look like nothing else in the aisle (80%).

Advantage is where audiences separate. Early adopters stand apart here — 91% say the collection is better than what’s already available (vs. 47% norm). Under-45s (71%) and men (68%) follow, and women clear the norm too at 57%. Over-45s are the only group that drop to 49% — in line with the norm.

The same split runs through purchase likelihood. Under-45s would buy at $8.39 at a rate well above the norm (70% vs. 52%), while over-45s aren’t as interested (50%).

Similar to most innovations, early adopters are the engine behind this launch. They’re the strongest audience on every single measure: 90% would buy unpriced, 87% would buy at $8.39, and 99% say it meets what they want from a carbonated soft drink (vs. 68% norm).

Men rate the collection higher than women on every measure, but both sit well above the norm — distinctiveness (88% vs. 83%), advantage (68% vs. 57%), relevance (67% vs. 61%) and meets needs (84% vs. 78%).

But when it comes to buying, men’s purchase likelihood actually goes up once they see $8.39 (67% to 69%), while women’s falls substantially from 64% to 56%. The collection appeals to both but the price makes women pause.

Which can wins?

Fanta Ghost Face Punch is the winner, with two-thirds saying they’d buy it (67% would buy vs. 19% would not). Strawberry (65%) and Orange (64%) are close behind.

Ghost Face Punch is the only new drink in the collection — Strawberry, Orange, Pineapple and Orange Zero Sugar are all standard Fanta flavors in Halloween packaging. So the new licensed flavor wins by just two points against drinks people are able to buy all year round.

Orange Zero Sugar is the odd one out — 42% say they wouldn’t buy it, compared to 40% who would. Every other can is overall net positive.

This is because Zero Sugar is more suitable to a specific target audience. Here’s what some of the people say:

• “I like having a zero sugar option.”

• “Not all the flavors come in zero sugar.”

• “They come in a variety of different flavors that are very popular with people who like drinks with limited or no sugar.”

What people say they’d buy first tells a slightly different story. Ghost Face Punch still leads, picked by 56% as their first purchase, but Orange jumps to second at 51% — ahead of Strawberry, which drops to 40% despite being the second-most appealing can in the range.

Strawberry is well liked but it isn’t what people reach for first, while Orange punches above its appeal because it’s the can they already know. This suggests Ghost Face Punch is the reason to stop and look, while Orange is the familiar flavor people trust.

Can it win over new buyers?

Generally, Fanta isn’t the go-to for most soda drinkers. Almost everyone we surveyed (92%) had bought a carbonated soft drink in the last two weeks, but only 36% had bought Fanta.

But the Haunted Collection gives them a reason to choose Fanta. Of those who’d consider buying it, 43% say it would replace what they usually buy rather than sit alongside it (vs. 35% norm). That’s a strong sign the collection would win share from other drinks.

If the collection wasn’t available, people’s most common picks would be Sprite, Crush and Dr Pepper, and orange sodas like Crush and Sunkist come up a lot. That fits what we saw with the cans: the collection appeals to orange soda drinkers, which helps explain why plain Fanta Orange converts so well.

And they wouldn’t buy it just once. Nearly two-thirds of those who’d consider it (63%) say they’d pick it up at least every two to three weeks, and 58% say it makes them want to buy soft drinks more often (vs. 46% norm).

What do people like about Fanta’s Haunted Collection?

The cans, more than the drink

Comments about the design and the characters outnumber comments about flavor, which makes sense, because for most of this range the artwork is the only thing that’s new. The design is the innovation here, and the response tells us it landed.

People said things like:

• “The design they did, love how they design the can since Halloween or spooky season is around the corner, it will bring the audience their attention.”
• “I like how cool the visuals and designs are on the collection.”
• “I love how the colors and the custom designs bring out the holiday.”

Collecting them

People are excited about completing the set and several plan to keep the cans after drinking them.

They said things like:

• “I like the unique packaging and that it's only gonna come out once and it's a collectors item.”
• “I am a real sucker for packaging and love this. I really like Fanta and this range of flavors is so much fun. It will be fun to try all the flavors and collect the cans.”
• “I like the design of them and can use it for Halloween decorations after I drink them.”

The horror movie connection

Ghost Face is the only character in the collection people already know, and for horror fans that recognition is the whole appeal.

People said things like:

• "I love Halloween, so the fact that they created this Haunted Collection makes me ecstatic! I also like the flavors, especially Ghost Face's.”
• “I'm a horror genre fan, so this appeals to me in that sense.”
• “I like the theming of slasher villains and the flavors they have.”

The Halloween party occasion

People thought the collection would fit great for gatherings and specifically as an option for everyone who isn’t drinking alcohol.

They said things like:

• “This is going to be a good addition to my Halloween party for people who don't drink alcohol and want something carbonated.”
• “Perfect for the Halloween season. It will be a great conversation topic. Lots of fun for everyone. The kids especially will love it.”
• “I like that this is a fun product for a fun occasion.”

Final thoughts

Few brands commit to a season the way Fanta has committed to Halloween. Right now Ghost Face is doing the heavy lifting, but every Halloween Fanta’s own monsters come back is a Halloween the brand needs a licensed character less. Unlike a licensing deal, the world it’s building is Fanta’s to keep!

Looking to understand how consumers will respond to your new innovation ideas before launch? You can test and optimize your innovative new concepts with Zappi’s connected Innovation System. Get a demo to learn more.

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