Stranger Things

Stranger Things

Era

• 1980s
• Enjoyed by both young and old audiences
• Makes intertextual references to a range of 80s texts
• Stephan Kings novel
• Dungens and Dragons
• ET
• Stand by me
• The goonies

Representation
Masculinity- Teacher, Government workers, Sheriff/ Police, Jonathon- Cooking, Crying etc.
Age- Young vs Old, young swearing etc 'no ones typical'
Small town America
80's
Teenage- geeks over plastics
Intertextuality
Stranger Things 2016
ET 1982

Speilberg- Et was a huge influence and the duffer brothers wanted to set the film by the coast to make reference to jaws however the budget didn't allow this.
Stephen King- Eleven has been compared to Carrie and the font in the title clearly rejects a homage to the king of Horror.
Nightmare on Elm street- monster through the wall
The Goonies- Young actors
Firestarter- Young girl with head manipulation techniques
Stand by me/ the body- Kids walking along tracks
Synergy
-Eleven's favourite food are eggs waffles. Kelloggs Eggo was not product placement in the first series.
-However, Eggo sales have increased dramatically, and as such Kellogg's have jumped on the 80's bandwagon, by including one of the 80's adverts in the season trailer for Season 2. This was launched at the NFL Super Bowl.
-National Waffle day was celebrated by a post made on twitter referencing Eleven and stranger Things.
Fandom and Stranger things 
-The series has a strong online fan base.
-Fans often create negotiated readings
-Textual Poachers- selecting part of the text that appeal to them and using these as the basis of their 'WE media" products.
-Fan essential in the marketing/ promotional process- their fan art etc shared by Stranger Things official social media accounts.
The Duffer Brothers
- The duffer brothers began making films in the third grade using a hi8 video camera that was a gift from their parents.
-They relocated to orange, California to study film at Chapmans University's Dodge College of Film and Moving Arts, graduating in 2007
-After writing/ directing a number of short films, their script for the post-apocalyptic horror film Hidden was acquired by Warner Bros in 2011

Original Netflix series so paid for by them and distributed by them exclusively.
Ranked as the most popular digital series in the US only after the week after its release on Netflix
Merch
Stranger Things Pops
T-shirts, phone cases etc
Success of Stranger Things
Attributed to its pacing and its binge-ability. In earlier iterations, Stranger Things was set to be a film, however, they decided with Netflix to let it play out without being restricted to a standard 13 or 22 episode run.
Low budget and Netflix is paid via subscription  rather than per program
 The series was first aired Netflix 15th July 2016, with only 8 episodes. 

Social Media- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram . Fan Art, memes and gifs produced by prosumers in the fan community. Features links to announcements and Q&A streams, interviews and other content.
Millennials
The generation now represents a quarter of the US population. This group also has an annual buying power of more than $200 billion, yet its still one of the most challenging generations for marketers to figure out.
Nostalgia Marketing 
-People generally spend more money when they are feeling nostalgic.
-Stranger Things lays the nostalgia on thick with the 80's fashion and hairstyles. Back to a time when kids went outside on their bikes.
-Captivated by title sequence as same style of 80's. The font choice is distinctly 80's and shows the attention to detail and authentic feel.
-Even though the familiar feeling, the show still feels original.