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Beyoncé

Beyonce's 'Formation' helped boost sales 33% at Red Lobster

Hadley Malcolm
USA TODAY

Beyonce's star power had fans flocking to the Red Lobster restaurant chain over the weekend.

Beyonce performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 50 football game in Santa Clara, Calif. Bey's mention of the Red Lobster chain in her new single 'Formation' helped boost sales by 33% on Sunday vs. the same day last year, Red Lobster says.

Bey's sexually charged mention of Red Lobster in her new single Formation — around the 3:00 mark — helped the company achieve a 33% surge in sales on Sunday vs. Super Bowl Sunday 2015, Red Lobster told USA TODAY. Her single was released Saturday, making headlines the day before she stole the Super Bowl 50 halftime show from headliner Coldplay and guest Bruno Mars.

Red Lobster didn't realize Beyonce called out the chain in her song until the chain started trending on Twitter, CEO Kim Lopdrup told USA TODAY.

"We had nothing to do with the song and had no advance knowledge of it being released," he says. "We learned about it by seeing that we were trending as number one on Twitter, which is probably the first time that has ever happened."

Lopdrup said sales continued to spike on Monday. To be fair, Lopdrup said the chain has been performing well ever since splitting off as an independent company from Darden Restaurants in 2014 and company spokeswoman Erica Ettori says that the sales increase can also likely be attributed to the launch of the expanded Lobsterfest menu — which goes through April — and better weather this year compared to the same weekend last year.

Still, there were more than 300,000 tweets about Red Lobster over the weekend and Google searches spiked after Beyonce's song came out.

Red Lobster made a slightly botched attempt to capitalize on the buzz, with a tweet that people were quick to call out for coming a bit late on Saturday night and a joke that fell flat. Beyonce released her video Saturday afternoon.

Red Lobster tried to recover with a follow-up tweet on Sunday that it also got flack for.

Red Lobster is still running with the unexpected publicity and some employees have even started referring to menu items to pay tribute to the mega star, with drinks like the "Bey Breeze."

Based on Red Lobster's weekend sales performance, it appears at least some people were willing to overlook the company's social media response in order to get their seafood fix — and perhaps a bit more than that. As both apparently Beyonce and Red Lobster are aware, lobster is a known aphrodisiac.

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