Domino’s does Stranger Things with 80s packaging and a new mind ordering pizza app

It’s almost here. From 27 May Stranger Things will be filling our feeds and lighting up our Netflix screens once more. But if you can’t wait – and you’re the kind of fan that called Murray’s phone number at the end of series three to hunt for spoilers – you’re probably going to like Domino’s latest campaign in collaboration with Netflix. In typical Eleven fashion, the food chain has just launched a new immersive app experience that allows users to order pizza with their mind.

For the more sceptical among you, the Domino’s mind ordering app actually works using facial recognition and eye-tracking technology. A release from Domino’s explains it allows users or “test subjects” to “use their ‘powers’ to order pizza by making certain facial expressions and head movements”. Upping the nerd factor even further, the Domino’s Mind Ordering app also lets users explore Hawkins National Lab, transporting them to the centre of the new Stranger Things series a whole ten days early. Once in the lab, users can uncover easter eggs and use their “telekinetic powers to gain control of certain objects”, continues the release.

While the app is – frankly devastatingly – only available to US customers to try out, the new Domino’s Mind Ordering trailer is available for all to enjoy. The spot transports us to a 1986 Hawkins Domino’s where we’re reunited with Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) as they witness a mysterious incident ordering a pizza. In what at first seems merely like some brilliant set design details, the restaurant is kitted out in original Domino’s 80s branding and packaging. However, it transpires that the retro packaging has also been revived for a limited edition run of packaging for medium and large pizzas at stores across the US.

The renewal of 80s branding doesn’t stop at boxes alone. In a release, Kate Trumbull, Domino’s senior vice president of brand and product innovation, says Stranger Things fans can find “hidden surprises” within the app, “such as the Noid or Demogorgon”. The Noid is an advertising character created for Domino’s in the 1980s by claymation legend Will Vinton. The first commercial debuted in 1986, the very same year the new Stranger Things series is set to revive later this month.