Brand entertainment tie-ins don’t get any more elaborate than Domino’s Pizza’s introduction today of an app with which customers can order a pizza, using facial recognition, on a virtual set of the Netflix sci-fi series “Stranger Things.” But the stunt does more than just show off a novel technology.

The promotion—one of several brand partnerships aligned with the forthcoming release of the popular show’s fourth season—speaks to the growing need for brands to engage with young customers using the properties they love and the channels they inhabit, Kate Trumbull, Domino’s senior VP of brand marketing, said in an interview.

In this case, it just happens to involve paranormal powers, 1980s nostalgia, video game culture and a virtual reality environment to accompany a cultural property wildly popular with young viewers on a platform where—for now, at least—traditional advertising options don’t exist. And it comes just as scuffling Domino’s could use a supernatural boost of its own.

“I think [young consumers] love to experiment, and be immersed, and escape—and I think that’s where we’re going with the metaverse. That’s the future,” said Trumbull. “And with gaming being so popular, we think this will resonate. And we have to find ways to find audiences beyond linear TV—and have to in ways that are relevant, and don’t feel like advertising.”

Domino’s is calling the promotion “Mind Ordering,” and it really works—with some caveats. Given the requisite permissions from the user, the app utilizes a mobile phone’s camera that can recognize gestures and movements like bowing or shaking a head. Using these gestures, a customer can select and examine various images on the screen, including a Domino's pizza box, in a set resembling the Hawkins National Laboratory, the secretive government lab at the center of many “Stranger Things” supernatural mysteries.

These gestures can trigger an order for customers who are signed into their existing Domino’s account and who have previously designated an “Easy Order”—a previous order that includes saved payment and fulfillment information, such as a preferred pick-up site or delivery address.

While the effort deploys plenty of non-traditional ad techniques, the brand will use traditional methods to get the word out: The media buy for the mind-ordering ads will run on broadcast and cable programming, as well as streaming platforms (but not on ad-free Netflix, of course).

Nothing is off the table

Whether Domino’s sells a whole lot of pizzas this way is hardly the point of the stunt, although it supports strategic imperatives for the chain including the migration of customers to its app and loyalty program, while offering exposure to those hard-to-reach young customers, Trumbull said.

Online ordering—and mind ordering for that matter—supports much-needed operational efficiency and helps incentivize larger average order sizes by exposing Domino’s customers to its full menu. And data from those orders support the company’s ability to target that particular customer personally, and better understand segments. For example, customers see their favorite orders prominently when they log on, and those who prefer carryout to delivery will see carryout offers, Trumbull said.

“If you think you want a pizza and just call the store, you order and be done with it,” Trumbull said. “When you go to the online ordering process, there’s a chance you’ll say ‘Oh my gosh, they have pastas, they have breads, they have salads, they have beverages.’ So there’s an opportunity for us to expose them to more items, and we see that changes consumer behavior.”

Domino’s counts 29 million active members of its “Piece of the Pie” loyalty rewards program. Members can earn discounts and perks as they shop.

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Digital offerings are “helpful in all the actions we take from a marketing perspective, whether that’s a big national window like Carryout Tips or some of the more targeted things we offer,” Trumbull added. “When we know your journey digitally, we also know what kind of service you had and that can better prepare us to look at ways to get you to come back. So data is incredibly powerful on a one-to-one basis, but also from a segmentation basis.”

The promotion comes as Domino’s—which transitioned to a new CEO, Russell Weiner on May 1—battles a challenging stretch on multiple fronts. Results in its fiscal first quarter were especially disappointing, outgoing CEO Ritch Allison said last month, as the chain dealt with the omicron coronavirus surge in January, further exacerbating a labor shortage that has challenged the company to effectively meet the demand for delivery, with some stores limiting hours or being unable to answer incoming delivery calls. U.S. sales turned negative in March, in part due to the effect of lapping government stimulus payments from a year ago. And rising costs combined with a 3.6% drop in same-store sales led to a whopping earnings miss and subsequent stock selloff; shares are down by nearly 42% year-to-date.

Weiner, who was previously Domino’s chief operating officer, said on an April 28 conference call that he would address the challenges by replicating the practices of the chain’s best-performing stores. He intends to have all stores restore normal hours, use call centers to take pressure off phone volume at stores, and bring back a series of “boost weeks,” or periods during which the chain offers heavy discounts to stimulate demand and recapture lapsed customers. Domino’s would also consider utilizing third-party delivery for the first time, Weiner said—a practice the chain has resolutely avoided until now, in spite of cries from financial analysts.

“I will tell you, nothing is off the table when we … think about the long term, and getting folks who want Domino’s their delivery order,” Weiner said.

Still, some analysts appeared skeptical of Weiner’s prescriptions, saying delivery woes were more urgent. Writing in a recent research note to clients, Andrew Charles of Cowen & Co. deemed the plan “too little, too late.”

Easter Eggs

To execute the "Stranger Things" promotion, Domino’s turned to its creative agency, WorkInProgress, which contracted with the tech-focused production company Unit 9 to develop the app.

Trumbull said the company and agency had been at work on a "Stranger Things" promotion since being contacted by Netflix about 18 months ago.

The show—set in the 1980s—and the pizza chain make for a natural fit, Trumbull said, allowing Domino’s to bring back its 1980s packaging and logos and advertising properties like “The Noid.” These appear among many Domino’s and Stranger Things “Easter eggs” in the app and are shown in a new commercial and long-form video starring characters Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), who witness a series of eerie events that leads to Domino’s mind-ordering.

The brand’s conversation with Netflix was around the idea that “if we were going to do something, we wanted to do something that was really special, unexpected, and something neither of us could do our own,” Trumbull said. “We wanted to share the unique parts of ‘Stranger Things’—the supernatural, the mystery, the connection of friendship, and the nostalgia of the '80s. We also love to do things around tech innovation, and so we said, let’s try to do something that no other brands would do.”

“Stranger Things,” which was created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer and debuted in 2016, is one of Netflix’s biggest hits, with 196 million households streaming, said Trumbull.

“It is a cultural phenomenon, to be honest, and we’re always looking to connect with the hard-to-reach Gen Z and Millennial audiences,” she said. “There’s not been a great way to reach Millennials and Gen Z, but that’s where they are. They’re not watching cable. They’re on TikTok and YouTube, but a lot more are on Netflix.

“We thought this was a smart way to partner and develop really fun and unexpected content,” Trumbull continued. “We’re fortunate to be working with two of the most beloved characters on the show because it allows us to use our digital platforms to reach their audiences in a way that’s more relevant than just serving up Domino’s Pizza ads.”

Read more: Netflix's 'Stranger Things' marketing offers clues to its streaming wars plan