New Coke rerun set for return of ‘Stranger Things’

New Coke, the soft drink that drew a nationwide backlash in 1985, is back.

The credit — or blame — for the return of Coca-Cola’s greatest folly goes to Netflix.

A limited supply of the vintage beverage will be available starting Thursday as part of a robust promotional campaign related to the coming season of “Stranger Things,” the supernatural thriller set in the 1980s.

Netflix, which has 149 million paid subscribers worldwide, is starting to ramp up its corporate partnerships and merchandising deals.

The strategy gives the streaming service a way to market its wares and generate a new revenue stream that doesn’t involve interrupting its shows with commercials.

Unlike its competitor Hulu, Netflix is commercial free, although it has included product placement — sometimes paid, sometimes not — on its series and films.

The revival of New Coke comes as part of a large-scale marketing effort of the kind usually associated with summertime blockbusters. Netflix said it had teamed up with about 75 companies, including Baskin-Robbins, Levi’s and H&M Group, to draw attention to “Stranger Things.”

Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of the show, said the New Coke tie-in came about naturally, given that the coming season, available July 4, takes place in summer 1985.

That was when the Coca-Cola Co. was fending off the unexpected negative reaction to the sweeter, smoother version of its flagship beverage, a reaction that included boycotts, letter-writing campaigns and thousands of phone calls to its Atlanta headquarters.

“New Coke was always going to play a role this season,” the Duffer Brothers, as they are listed in the credits, said in a joint email interview. “It was one of the first ideas in our Season 3 brainstorm. It was the summer of ’85, and when you talk about pop culture moments, New Coke was a really big deal. It would have been more bizarre to not include it.”

Although Coca-Cola executives have acknowledged that New Coke was a debacle, they said yes to the proposal. The company had to dig up the recipe from its archives and said it would make 500,000 cans of New Coke available on its website and in some vending machines.