Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF Teams Up With The Peanuts Movie

The Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign began as a fundraising program for children on Halloween to solicit small change donations using a “little orange box” distributed by schools. On Halloween in 1950, the Allison Family in Pennsylvania recruited their own children and their community’s youth to go door-to-door collecting nickels and dimes in decorated milk cartons to aid children in post-World War II Europe. They collected a total of $17 and donated all of it to UNICEF. Seventy years later, the campaign has raised more than $188 million worldwide, to provide lifesaving services to the world’s most vulnerable children. For the 65th anniversary of the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign, Tamar forged one of the first partnerships of its kind for the organization to refresh fundraising efforts in the United States after a steady decline in youth engagement and donations raised year over year.

While digging through archives during the creative brainstorming process in 2015, Tamar learned that the iconic “Peanuts” comic strip helped make trick-or-treating popular when Charles Schulz drew his iconic characters in ghost costumes preparing for Halloween. Tamar immediately contacted 20th Century Fox who were releasing Blue Sky Studios’ THE PEANUTS MOVIE, based on the Charles Schultz comic strip, the fifth Peanuts film and the first in thirty-five years.

As the partnership press release cites, “Want to be part of something totally awesome?" That's Charlie Brown's question to American kids in the co-produced public service announcement (PSA), as he encourages them to take part in the original Kids Helping Kids campaign. Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang were featured in print, online and broadcast PSA’s to inspire kids to go door-to-door with special edition Peanuts-themed orange boxes.

In addition to the PSA donated-media campaign, as part of the cause-marketing efforts, teachers of grade K-12 students were able to participate through the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF School Challenge, a short essay contest focused on encouraging global citizenship in the classroom and community. The top 15 essay competition entrants received $500 of Scholastic books. The creativity of the campaign drew a significant increase in youth engagement across the country and the popularity of the film’s release created momentum of the fundraising campaign for months to come.