Maxibon rebuilds its ice cream upside down for Stranger Things

Maxibon has spent years asking a question no other ice cream brand could ask: which way up is a 'Bon? Is the biscuit the top or the bottom? The question made the product the brand's personality, and it gave the Australian team a perfect door into Stranger Things when Netflix announced the fifth and final season.

For the collaboration, SICKDOGWOLFMAN rebuilt the ice cream as the Upside 'Bon: a white chocolate slab loaded with cookie crumbs, sandwiched between a dark chocolate biscuit on one end and a red-choc dip on the other. Every structural detail of the limited edition was designed so that eating it felt like holding the show's Upside Down, and the packaging asked which end fans would eat first.

Production house Limehouse built the integrated campaign around a film that opens on a freezer slowly taken over by the Upside Down — vines, spores and all — building suspense to a jump-scare reveal of the Stranger Things 'Bon inside. The launch was supported by OOH, digital and social, all extending the 'Born Different' platform instead of borrowing a trend with no logic for the brand.

'We know the Maxibon tribe are always excited to see a new 'Bon hit the shelves, especially one that has both a new biccie end and a new choc end,' said marketing manager Eileen Whitta. The limited edition hit freezers across Australia as the show's final episodes premiered in three volumes — November 27, Boxing Day and New Year's Day — making the product a talking point in the middle of the show's biggest cultural moment.