October 30, 2026
Courtenay Harris Bond/PhillyVoice
A Farmers Insurance billboard at City Hall contains about 14,000 pounds of full-size candy bars that are being distributed to people for free through Saturday evening.
Dilworth Park was more crowded than usual Thursday as hordes of tourists, families and business professionals lined up to ring a doorbell on a bright pink Farmers Insurance billboard in exchange for a free bag of full-size candy bars.
The Halloween promotion – part of a brand campaign to boost the company's East Coast presence — runs through Saturday. Farmers Insurance expects to distribute 12,000 bags of Reese's, Skittles, Snickers, Sour Patch Kids and other Halloween favorites.
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Before it kicked off Thursday morning, crews spent 10 hours setting up the the 40-foot wide and 10-foot tall installation that reads "Honestly, the best home protection this Halloween? Good candy." The billboard, at 15th and Market streets, is giving out candy from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Austin Price, director of production, said his team was given three weeks to pull off the campaign. During that time, they purchased 120,000 pieces of some of the most popular candies, nearly clearing the shelves of some of the Philadelphia area's biggest wholesalers. The candy amounts to about 14,000 pounds.
The billboard, which weighs three tons, has enough candy to distribute 3,500 to 4,000 individual bags each day it's open. Each bag comes with six items. The bags were packaged by 18 people over the course of two days in a nearby warehouse, Price said.
"It's just about making an experience," Price said Thursday. "Getting a brand in front of people's line of sight. It's the only one in the country."
Rachel Meeusen, who leads corporate communications with Farmers, said the billboard is part of a larger brand campaign aimed at building the Los Angeles-based insurance company's presence in the Philadelphia area in "meaningful, sometimes simply fun" ways.
"We wanted to find a more unexpected and engaging way to connect with the community," she said. "... Dilworth Park felt like the perfect place to bring a little Halloween fun to residents and visitors and hopefully make someone's day a little sweeter."
