Eggo is having a Mad Men moment, thanks to Stranger Things.
Just as the AMC TV show about advertising in the 1960s resurfaced old ads, from Cadillac to US Airways to Coca-Cola, and gave them a new cultural relevance, Netflix’s Stranger Things is making the frozen-waffle brand cool again. Fans will recall that one of the shows main characters, Eleven, or El, had a love affair with waffles during season one. (El and her Eggos were popular costumes among kids and adult fans of the show this past Halloween.)
And Eggo scored huge exposure over the weekend when it starred in Netflix’s Super Bowl spot for Stranger Things. The ad began with an 1980s commercial for the breakfast food, which used the classic “Leggo My Eggo” slogan, and morphed into a trailer for the show’s upcoming season, which breaks around Halloween.
Eggo didn’t pay a dime for the placement during Sunday’s game, which was watched by more than 111 million people on TV. The ad itself has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube. And it was reportedly the most talked about commercial of the game.
Trinh Le, Eggo’s marketing director, said the brand has nothing to do with the product’s integration into the show. “Eggo’s presence in Stranger Things was a happy surprise for the brand and it was clear that fans loved it as much as we did,” Le said. “All product featured in the show is organic.”
The Kellogg-owned brand is reaping the rewards of the free publicity, however. It jokingly trolled the Super Bowl spot, which it knew about in advance and planned to react to, with an apt tweet that garnered 9,000 retweets and 19,000 likes:
Netflix responded:
The brand plans to do more to leverage moments like that heading into season two, which reportedly will feature Eggo waffles again. ”Eggo is going to have ties moving forward with Stranger Things, and they’re working on some big things,” an advertising executive familiar with Eggo’s marketing told Ad Age.
Kellogg did not immediately respond to Quartz’s request for comment.