There’s no – wait for it – grey area here: “Fifty Shades of Grey” is fan fic­tion that can eas­i­ly get away with call­ing itself a world­wide phe­nom­e­non. And brands have tak­en note, as they, too, attempt to cap­ture fans’ atten­tion with themed con­tent and prod­ucts.

The offi­cial Super Bowl spot, which itself has 3.2 mil­lion views, claims more than 100 mil­lion copies of the book have been sold to date and the trail­er has been viewed more than 250 mil­lion times. And, last but cer­tain­ly not least, the series also notes it is respon­si­ble for the inspi­ra­tion of “count­less” fan­tasies.

With sear­ing dia­logue, like, “I had a rough start in life. That’s all you need to know,” and, “Like your Xbox and stuff?” it’s no won­der. (Although, for the record, the Super Bowl spot was not a big hit among foot­ball fans, rank­ing 56th out of 61 in USA Today’s Ad Meter rank­ings.)

Movie tick­et sell­er Fan­dan­go, how­ev­er, says the film is the brand’s biggest R‑rated pre-sell­er in its 15-year his­to­ry, as well as its biggest-ever Valentine’s Day open­er. And, in the lead-up to its Feb­ru­ary 13 debut, Fan­dan­go says the movie rep­re­sent­ed more than 70 per­cent of tick­et sales on the site for Feb­ru­ary 10. (Fan­dan­go declined to pro­vide spe­cif­ic fig­ures for tick­et sales so far.)

“It’s a com­ple­ment of a few things. The book itself was a phe­nom­e­non among women. It was their self-indul­gent expe­ri­ence. It was some­thing they all shared and rev­eled in in some way,” said Adam Rock­more, vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing at Fan­dan­go. “You take that and now the movie comes out, so there’s intrigue when­ev­er you have any kind of book with that kind of buzz and fer­vor and bring it to the big screen. Will it be the same? Dif­fer­ent?”

Plus, Valentine’s Day week­end – fol­lowed by President’s Day on Mon­day, no less – means both sin­gle girls look­ing for a girls’ night out and cou­ples look­ing for a date night are scoop­ing up tick­ets.

“It’s no dif­fer­ent than a din­ner reser­va­tion,” Rock­more said.

To stim­u­late buzz, Fan­dan­go has focused on con­tent mar­ket­ing efforts like quizzes, he said.

But Fan­dan­go cer­tain­ly isn’t the only brand to ben­e­fit from a “Fifty Shades of Grey” tie-up.

Author E.L. James, for exam­ple, “helped to cre­ate the blends Red Satin and White Silk” in the Fifty Shades of Grey Wine col­lec­tion because, she says, “Wine plays an impor­tant role in Fifty Shades of Grey, reflect­ing the sen­su­al­i­ty that per­vades every encounter between Anas­ta­sia and Chris­t­ian.”

Ger­man auto man­u­fac­tur­er Audi, which is fea­tured in the book and film, teamed up with come­di­an Vanes­sa Bay­er in an online video that spoofs the series’ ele­va­tor scene. It has near­ly 1 mil­lion views to date.

Con­dom brands Tro­jan and Durex have also got­ten in on the action.

Tro­jan’s 50 Shades par­o­dy, which tells view­ers to “get out of the grey area and into 50 Shades of Real Plea­sure,” has been seen about 400,000 times so far.

The real win­ner, how­ev­er, is con­dom brand Durex and its #50GamestoPlay video, which has 11.8 mil­lion views and count­ing.

These are the brands with log­i­cal con­nec­tions to the fran­chise. But a few oth­ers seem to have come some­where out of left field. Here are the most unex­pect­ed brand inte­gra­tions with “50 Shades of Grey”.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

The lat­est movie in the Sponge­Bob SquarePants fran­chise, which as of Feb­ru­ary 11, is the #1 movie in Amer­i­ca with $55.4 mil­lion in sales in its first week­end per Fan­dan­go. Their “Fifty Shades of Yel­low” tweet, fea­tur­ing an image of Mr. SquarePants in the role of Mr. Grey, gen­er­at­ed more than 15,000 retweets.

50 Shades of Yel­low. #Sponge­bob­Movie #Super­Bowl pic.twitter.com/EUICdRnHx1 — Sponge­Bob Movie (@SpongeBobMovie) Feb­ru­ary 2, 2015

Walmart

U.S. retail­er Wal­mart, in the­o­ry, has a vest­ed inter­est in the series’ suc­cess as it also sells the tril­o­gy. How­ev­er to dri­ve a lit­tle extra je ne sais quoi, the brand has assem­bled its own five-pound Fifty Shades of Grey Gourmet Gift Bas­ket, which, at $69.99, includes: chrome-plat­ed met­al dou­ble lock hand­cuffs, hair ties, a mas­quer­ade eye mask, Hot Tamales ‘Untamed Love’ The­ater Size Box, Twiz­zlers Straw­ber­ry Twists, East Shore Spe­cial­ty Dip­ping Pret­zel Rods and Twin­ings Eng­lish Break­fast Tea, among oth­er prod­ucts “in a gift box hand-tied with a rope.”

Vermont Teddy Bear

Ver­mont Ted­dy Bear, which calls itself the nation’s largest pro­duc­er of hand­craft­ed ted­dy bears, has added a lim­it­ed-edi­tion Fifty Shades of Grey Bear to its col­lec­tion. Like 50 Shades of Grey wine, this prod­uct is approved by James, but, unlike the wine, it sells for $89.99.

“Like the seduc­tive male pro­tag­o­nist, Chris­t­ian Grey, the lim­it­ed-edi­tion Fifty Shades of Grey Bear wears a gray silk suit and tie and has smol­der­ing eyes,” the brand says. “He even comes with a mask and mini hand­cuffs.”

Ver­mont Ted­dy Bear encour­ages con­sumers to “[tie one] down” on its web­site.

Lego

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Lego ver­sion of the “50 Shades of Grey” trail­er isn’t offi­cial­ly sanc­tioned by the Dan­ish build­ing block brand. The effort by YouTube user Toscano Bricks, which recre­ates movie trail­ers with Legos, how­ev­er, has racked up an impres­sive 3.6 mil­lion views to date.

OPI Products

Nail pol­ish brand has a 50 Shades of Grey col­lec­tion with (most­ly grey) shades like My Silk Tie and Dark Side of the Mood.

Although, to be fair, the brand also has a Peanuts col­lec­tion, which is per­haps slight­ly more unex­pect­ed.

Addi­tion­al brands, whether specif­i­cal­ly influ­enced by “50 Shades” or not, have also trot­ted out their own qua­si-risque con­tent. They include:

Clorox

A brand bet­ter known for mak­ing things clean than dirty, Clorox has teamed up with sex ther­a­pist Dr. Ruth to offer saucy laun­dry-relat­ed Valentine’s Day tips on its web­site, such as, “Make it hot. Keep things steamy — usu­al­ly stains come out best using the hottest water rec­om­mend­ed on the care label,” and “Do it every day. Love is not just a Sat­ur­day or Sun­day activ­i­ty, and nei­ther is laun­dry. Clorox 2 keeps col­ors bright, so use it in every load.”

Carlsberg Group

The Dan­ish brew­ing group has released “The world’s most unsafe for work video. Prob­a­bly.” which ends with, “If Carls­berg did erot­ic dra­ma, it would be the best in the world. Prob­a­bly.”

In a press release, Carls­berg says of the series, “The ads go straight to the heart of the mat­ter – the won­der­ful, refresh­ing and high qual­i­ty beer that is Carls­berg,” accord­ing to Didrik Fjeld­stad, Carlsberg’s direc­tor of strat­e­gy and inno­va­tion. “Here we’ve put togeth­er a series of [odes] to the beer in sit­u­a­tions where you might not expect it. Prob­a­bly.”

The erot­ic dra­ma video has 132,000 views, which is by far the most in the series so far.

What do you think of these “Fifty Shades of Grey” tie-ins?