Stranger Things!! Eggo Waffles?

 

The other day I decided to binge Stranger Things. I think the show is awesome and very well thought out; I love their use of each of the characters emotions to portray the density and meta of the plot. I also can not imagine being so young and having so much fame from being in a television series. The kids are phenomenal actors and actresses with more talent in their pinky than I possess in my entire body. They can make you laugh, cry, scream, and jump, all while doing it themselves in their own acting. Since they are so good at convincing people to believe they are in the show and almost creating an addiction to wanting to see more, what better place to advertise a product. Actors are the ultimate liars and persuaders, able to convince an audience of almost anything. This becomes an obvious target for companies trying to sell large groups of people a product.

In the show Stranger Things, the most prevalent product placed in their series is Eggo waffles. I decided to count and Eggos are either mentioned or pictured an average of at least seven times each individual episode. This is absolutely insane to me! It makes me wonder how much the company pays Netflix each time the camera pans to a box, or main character Elle feasting on them, or begging for some. It is iconic to the show. If anyone mentions Eggo waffles the first thing that comes to my mind is Stranger Things and adversely, whenever anyone mentions Stranger Things, I think of Elle and her Eggo Waffle obsession. This is a genius idea on the part of the company, but begs the question if there is a single second of our waking lives where we are not surrounded by advertisements, regardless of whether we are aware of them or not.

Other movies and television shows also use this technique that seems to benefit every party involved, except the unsuspecting viewer. The first to come to mind is more of a sort of spoof of product placement. In the movie, The Truman Show, there is a scene where the main characters wife is just naming, giving a short description of, and holding up randomly placed products in their house. It makes the main character absolutely go nuts. Similarly to how it makes viewers feel when we are constantly bombarded with junk like this. Sadly, whether or not we like it product placement is here to stay and to be completely honest, if we make the connection between a product and a show/movie in our head, it has already worked.