The Collaboration of Stranger Things and Kellog Company

Business Organizations are always searching innovative ways to successfully market their brand to the consumers. Many of the organizations were looking for the next big thing. Such as using the social media or the internet for marketing was a ground-breaking idea, it also helped in increasing more customers and more sales. This event is called viral marketing strategy. Using websites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread the idea and information to the people. This event was first done by the people who directed the low budget film “The Blair Witch Project” back in 1999. Even though the internet was simply beginning to boom around the late 90s, no one ever thought of the internet as a marketing platform. This event changes how people marketed their product to the consumer.

Kellogg’s Stranger Things campaign is when two major companies joined forces to gain more success for each of their products. This is one of the most inventive and effective campaigns that has been done. The reason it has been successful is due its clever thinking. With the premier of the second season of Stranger Things Eggo’s and Netflix team up to bring the awareness of the show. On the 27 October 2017 when Eleven (a main character on the show) showed her love for Eggo’s the whole world felt both confused and relatable. With the series ability to include smart Easter eggs also bringing the 80s vibe alive, it was bit nostalgic for some of the older viewer who had enjoyed Kellogg’s Eggo during their childhood. And Kellogg’s took the chance to capitalize on Eggos frequent appearances on the Netflix series.

As for the Kellogg’s marketing team they saw this as a golden opportunity to endorse their product. The brand made successful return from the free marketing they got through Netflix’s most profitable series ‘Stranger Things’ (Rahul Aggarwal and Varun Aggarwal, 2014). And with the help of their social media team they took the opportunity to create even more hype with #StrangerThings. Basically the hashtag dominated the social media and help the airing of the shows 2nd season with less effort. The social media platforms were filled with images and GIFs of Eleven with her favorite snack. Also with the show premiering around Halloween eggo’s went all out retweeting people with (Ayzenberg, Arevalo-Downes, Ryan Ellis, Downes, 2012) the frozen waffle boxes, sharing hints about the show and posting recipes for different waffle mixtures. Also a nine-course menu had been published to match all of the episodes in the series (Rahul Aggarwal and Varun Aggarwal, 2014). And the viewers can pair it with an Eggo recipe. They even sent an Eggo Waffle Truck to the shows premiere event in Los Angeles and created a Google Chrome add-on that blocks the show spoilers. Mentions of Eggo waffles on Twitter and Instagram have increased 143% since Oct. 20, one week before Stranger Things second seasons premiere date. Mentions have increased 98% in October compared to September. Also Kellogg’s declined to provide sales data for the product since the shows debut. Throughout the month of October, Eggo was mentioned over 41,200 times on Twitter alone, with the premiere date of Stranger Things Season 2 was around the corner. Eggo was mentioned 10,564 times and 9,087 of those posts also mentioned Stranger Things (Ayzenberg, Arevalo-Downes, Ryan Ellis, Downes, 2012). This engagement continued over Stranger Things premiere weekend, with a majority of Eggo product related posts also mentioning in the show. As for the official Eggo Twitter account, the brand has shown its pride for being Eleven’s favorite food with a number of posts, including this one that garnered over $1,000. Overall, it’s safe to say that being the favorite food of Eleven has its benefits.

Mentions for both Eggo and Stranger Things on Twitter earned the waffle brand approximately $201,801. The campaign undoubtedly helped the brand in increasing Eggo’s waffle sales. Eggo tapped into the popularity of ‘Stranger Things’ and ran a campaign that interacted with their audience to encouraged the Stranger Things fandom and explore their love for Eggo’s. This created a new base of customers for the Eggo’s market. And it was a good decision on their side to promote the campaign in all social media platforms. It allowed them to reach more customers than usual. By doing this Netflix also was able to reap the rewards of giving fans something new and different to talk about, such as the promotions from Eggo’s. This shows that one innovative idea could lead the company towards the path of success.

The two companies interacted when Netflix aired an Eggo commercial and then cut to the actual Netflix trailer. But it wasn't the end of the interaction. Eggo then tweeted a picture of upside down waffles with the accompanying upside down text, 'uıɐƃɐ sn ɥʇıʍ ƃuıssǝɯ noʎ ǝɹɐ @Stranger_Things 'ʎǝɥ' (aka 'hey, @Stranger_Things are you messing with us again'), a nod to the infamous Upside Down world in the Netflix show. This is marketing at its finest. Even after that Netflix tried a few things that would help them on a marketing point of view. Which was on the countdown website for the release of the second season, Netflix hid a very interesting Easter egg. Which when clicked it flipped the screen into Upside Down mode. In this mode, everything turns dark with creepy music and eerie vines much like it is in the show. These types of tactics are simple yet effective. It doesn’t require much on the marketers end, but it’s a big step in the right direction for peaking consumer interest.

Was the campaign a success? In my opinion this was indeed a success to both companies. The Netflix’s decision to hone in on the show’s connection to the frozen waffle brand was interesting move, because Netflix doesn’t usually allow product placements in their shows. Also the Kellogg’s Company wasn’t aware of their product would even be used in the show. But after the first season’s success, Eggo was able to use social media to their advantage by posting about the show’s waffle references. And this became the reason for the success of the campaign. Eggo’s took the opportunity that had been handed to them and handled it in very tactical manner. They basically tap into what their audience love and used it to help fuel their campaign via social media. While using the popularity of Stranger Things to hype the fans about the show, and also doing a campaign to increase their product sales. In the end it was a win-win situation. Also the success and consistency of the campaign is what made it so iconic and central to an entire generation of consumers. With that being said, it is so important to only use brands that make sense. The audience of that brand shouldn’t be hugely different. And it helps if both brands are similar to each other. In other words if the brands that is been promoted is not similar it could fail drastically.

Bibliography

1. Ayzenberg, Arevalo-Downes, Ryan Ellis, Downes, 2012. a.list. [Online]
2. Available at: https://www.alistdaily.com/social/eggo-earned-media-value-stranger-things/ [Accessed 10 July 2019].
3. Rahul Aggarwal and Varun Aggarwal, 2014. Designhill. [Online] Available at: https://www.designhill.com/design-blog/top-social-media-campaigns-you-can-learn-from/ [Accessed 9 July 2019].