The Easter holidays are a time of joy and wholesome celebration—a time to commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Celebrated annually in March and April, the Easter period typically involves loved ones and plenty of good food and sweet treats, providing ample Easter advertising opportunities for businesses that want to deepen their bond with customers.
If you’re drawing a blank and need to ignite the spark of inspiration for your Easter advertisements, we’ve got you covered. Below, we’ll dive into different easter advertising ideas, coupling these with real-life Easter ad examples to inspire your own.
The five easter advertising ideas we suggest you explore include:
- Leaning on clever visual metaphors
- Offering exclusive seasonal Easter specials
- Gamifying easter with easter egg hunt advertising
- Injecting some humor into Easter celebrations
- Promoting socially conscious causes
Want to create your Easter ad right away? Use our Easter ad campaign templates.
1. Lean on clever visual metaphors
Easter is a religious holiday, but that doesn’t necessarily have to translate to all-too-religious advertisements—especially since secular traditions have become the norm for Easter.
Now, eggs, bunnies, lambs, chocolate, and lilies have become staples in Easter imagery. And you can use these thematic approaches in your Easter advertising campaigns, mixing them with your brand’s look and offerings to create an Easter ad that is both on-brand and timely.
Let’s examine how some companies have used these elements in their easter marketing campaigns.
Easter advertising example #1: Stabilo
In their 2009 Easter ad, Stabilo showed a herd of white lambs—a clear nod to lambs’ significance to Easter. A single wolf was subtly revealed among the herd, propped up by a pink Stabilo highlighter that lifted it above the flock.
This Easter ad emphasized the core function of Stabilo’s highlighters—to help things stand out—in a thematic way suitable to the Easter period. This allowed the brand to join in on Easter celebrations without losing its brand identity.
Easter ad example #2: OMO Detergent
OMO’s 2019 creative Easter ad also plays into Easter symbolism, taking on a more religious angle for its Easter advertising campaign.
The crown of thorns is an unmistakable reference to Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. The pristine white cloth woven through the crown is their brand touch. It symbolizes the cleanliness that comes with using OMO’s detergents.
The copy further stresses this symbolism. “The first man who saw the good in dirt” reflects Jesus’ message of forgiveness while hinting at OMO’s own brand philosophy, which is to “help you and your family live life to the full, no matter how dirty they get in the process.”
Easter advertising example #3: McDonald’s
McDonald’s 2021 Easter campaign idea took a more plain yet playful approach to Easter symbolism. At first glance, the ad appears to be a simple close-up of McDonald’s sesame seed bun. Yet, upon closer inspection, the sesame seeds seemingly reflect white small eggs instead—a subtle yet glaring reference to Easter.
Although minimalistic, with ad copy stating “Happy Easter,” this ad perfectly plays into McDonald’s lighthearted brand persona while helping the company stay at the top of its customers’ minds during the Easter holidays.
2. Offer exclusive seasonal Easter specials
You can also create new customer experiences with exclusive Easter offers and limited-time products as part of your Easter campaigns. Not only does this provide novelty to your customers—a feeling that might’ve gone amiss if you typically have the same offers year round—but it also creates a sense of urgency that might drive sales. Beyond that, Easter-specific offers can bring more eyes to your brand, attracting customers keen on Easter-themed products or experiences.
Here’s how three brands approached their Easter advertising using Easter-specific offers.
Easter ad example #4: M&Ms
Each year, M&M releases limited edition Easter products. These typically include pastel-colored M&Ms with springtime packaging designs and Easter gift boxes packed with themed assortments of M&M candy. This is an excellent example of how a company benefits from seasonal promotions on a recurring, yearly basis.
In 2024, for example, M&M’s reintroduced its Easter Sundae flavor: Dark chocolate M&Ms with a white chocolate center. This product’s packaging included a fun, pastel purple backdrop with an M&M character dressed as a bunny holding an ice cream sundae.
Easter advertising example #5: Café Opera
Café Opera, a well-known upscale nightclub in Sweden, joined in on the Easter festivities while staying true to its opulent core. In 2013, it hosted an exclusive Easter party and promoted it with a lavish Easter ad.
Their ad featured a carton of eggs. Instead of standard eggs, each egg was adorned in gold, intricate details—a reflection of the luxurious experience the club provides. Their logo and the event details were subtly written on the inside of the carton in red, taking an “if you know, you know” approach that underscored the nightclub’s exclusivity.
This approach allowed the brand to communicate the Easter party’s event details while keeping its air of exclusivity intact.
Easter ad example #6: Deliveroo
Deliveroo’s 2019 Easter ad had many layers. It combined a mix of different—albeit complementary—Easter-related topics, resulting in a unique advertising experience.
The company ingeniously wrapped the Easter spirit with the excitement surrounding the final season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” How? By releasing a limited edition of Game of Thrones-inspired chocolate dragon eggs. These were meticulously crafted to look like the eggs in the series.
This limited-edition Easter treat allowed Deliveroo to achieve two goals at once: capitalize on the frenzy surrounding the show’s final season and cater to seasonal shoppers who want to celebrate Easter.
3. Gamify easter with interactive easter egg hunt advertising
As mentioned, eggs play a significant role in Easter traditions, contributing to the popularity of egg hunts. Dating back to the 16th century in Germany and later popularized in England, the egg hunt became a fun pastime activity during Easter—and still is to this day.
So, companies that want to offer a more interactive customer experience during Easter can promote their branded versions of an Easter egg hunt.
Below, we’ll examine three different approaches to Easter egg hunt advertising from Cadbury, Haribo, and Snapchat.
Easter advertising example #7: Cadbury
Cadbury’s Worldwide Hide Easter egg hunt advert has become a yearly company tradition for the past four years. It creates a unique digital-meets-real-world customer experience, where customers can jump on board and share the Easter spirit with their loved ones using a unique medium.
To participate in Cadbury’s Worldwide Hide, users first hide a digital Easter egg anywhere in the world using a virtual map. They then send clues to a loved one who must find the hidden egg using Google Maps’ street view. After the recipient spots the egg, they receive a real Cadbury chocolate egg.
With this Easter ad campaign, Cadbury not only reaches more consumers with its products but also grows closer to its existing customer base. Given that consumers tend to place the egg in deeply meaningful locations, such as beloved vacation spots or proposal sites, Cadbury can wedge itself in their customers’ most treasured memories.
Easter ad example #8: Haribo
Haribo’s 2019 Hunt the Double Yolker is another Easter egg hunt advertising iteration.
The campaign featured the release of a limited edition pack of Starmix, where lucky consumers could find rare ‘double yolk’ fried egg gummies. Those who discovered these got the chance to win a family holiday. This encouraged sales of Haribos’ limited edition products and added an element of surprise during the purchasing and consumption experience, injecting excitement into customers’ interactions with the brand.
Easter advertising example #9: Snapchat
In 2018, Snapchat introduced their Augmented Reality Easter Egg Hunt, which allowed its users to scavenge for virtual eggs using the app’s Snap Map feature.
For this campaign, Snapchat distributed over one million virtual eggs across public locations in the US and Canada. Users could then view nearby egg locations on Snap Maps, visit these spots in the real world, and collect them using their smartphone’s rear-facing camera.
Snapchat further gamified this campaign by awarding points for each egg collected and creating a leaderboard that displays scores among friends and the broader Snapchat community.
Similar to Cadbury’s Easter egg hunt, this interactive experience blended real-life and digital exploration to create fun interactions individually and within users’ wider community of friends and family.
4. Inject some humor into Easter celebrations
When done right, humor in advertising can be highly effective. And since there’s little inherent humor associated with Easter—a traditionally serious celebration—brands that successfully add humor into their Easter advertising campaigns have a greater chance of standing out.
Here’s how two brands successfully added a humorous spin on their Easter advertising.
Easter ad example #10: Scandic Hotels
Scandic Hotels’ Easter ad stood out with a comical take on the fatigue of the Easter period. As many people associate Easter with overwhelming family obligations, the idea of a soothing escape can instantly resonate with specific groups of people who prefer to get away from rather than revel in family duties.
Their Easter advert conveyed this fatigue using strong visuals. It displayed an image of a seemingly exhausted man splayed out on a cozy-looking hotel bed, fast asleep in a bright yellow oversized chicken costume.
The contrast of the man’s tiredness with the hotel bed’s seemingly comforting feel comically presents Scandic Hotels as a straightforward solution to the exhaustion faced by many during the holiday periods.
Easter advertising example #11: Kaefer Confiserie
Kaefer Confiserie’s 2004 Easter ad is hilariously straight to the point. It has no underlying meaning besides highlighting the deliciousness of its chocolate Easter bunnies in a way that makes customers giggle.
The ad cuts right to the chase, with two gold-wrapped chocolate Easter bunnies sitting across from each other. One bunny says, “Happy Easter!” while the other, whose ears are bitten off, responds with, “What?”
This clever pun humorously encapsulates the all-too-common experience of eating the chocolate bunny from the top down, starting from its ears. The ad’s overall minimalism keeps the main focus on the joke at hand and the contrasting brand logo right under it.
5. Advocate for the social good
While humor is a great way to approach Easter adverts, getting to the heart of the celebration with a community-first approach can keep your Easter advertising empathetic while reinforcing your brand values. This is why focusing on charity and kindness in your Easter ads can be a safe yet effective way to celebrate with your customers.
Here are two approaches to human-centered Easter advertising that tugged at customers’ heartstrings.
Easter ad example #12: The Canadian Fair Trade Network
The Canadian Fair Trade Network’s 2016 Easter advertising campaign shed light on the dark side of the chocolate-making industry. With chocolate being a heavy focus during the Easter holidays, their campaign highlighted the ethical concerns behind chocolate production, urging consumers to focus on fair trade chocolate.
At first glance, the ad seems similar to most Easter ads from confectionary brands. It featured chocolate wrapped in brightly colored packaging adorned with illustrations of spring flowers and Easter bunnies.
Upon closer inspection, however, an entirely different picture is at play.
The chocolate’s shape reflects a child laborer harvesting cocoa—a jab at this industry’s harsh, exploitative labor practices. This starkly contrasts its bubbly Easter-themed packaging, emphasizing the disparity between how chocolate is marketed and the morbid conditions under which it is often produced.
Easter advertising example #13: Krispy Kreme x Fareshare
In 2023, Krispy Kreme teamed up with FareShare, the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste, for its Easter advertising campaign. Their “Eggschange” campaign was essentially a programme that addressed the cost of living crisis.
For this Easter campaign, Krispy Kreme encouraged its customers to donate unopened Easter eggs at participating stores between April 7 and 10 in exchange for a four-pack of its limited-edition Easter-themed doughnuts.
This campaign wasn’t only beneficial for the greater good—it served Krispy Kreme and its customers just as well. Customers got to try Krispy Kreme’s limited edition Easter offerings, while Krispy Kreme reiterated its commitment to non-profit causes to boost its brand’s reputation.
Kickstart your Easter advertising with Creatopy
Now that you’ve got all the Easter advertising inspiration you need, you can bring your campaign to life. And what better way to do that than by delegating ad campaign creation, launch, and update to AI automation?
With Creatopy’s AI-powered ad campaign automation platform, you can leave behind the tedium of manually creating every single ad. Start with a template from our Easter-themed library or design from scratch. Then, let AI do the heavy lifting—automatically resizing, adapting, and optimizing your designs for social media and display ads. And there you go: With just a few clicks, you’ll have an entire ad set ready to go, allowing you the time to double down on your creative pursuits while letting Creatopy handle their execution.
