Last month, TV fans were faced with a conundrum. The season finale of HBO’s highly rated drama, The Last of Us, would be released at 9pm ET on Sunday, March 12, an hour into the broadcast of the Academy Awards. As they couldn’t reasonably watch both at the same time, which would they choose?

HBO executives had a guess. There was no serious consideration to move the finale to another night, as HBO had done for the series’ fifth episode during the Super Bowl, according to Meredith Gertler, head of global content strategy and analysis, scheduling, editorial and merchandising, and podcasts for HBO, HBO Max, and discovery+. Hard-core Last of Us fans would opt to tune in live, executives figured, and anyone else could watch The Last of Us whenever the Oscars ended.

They were right. Around 8.2 million people watched the finale, a record for the series—and proof enough that HBO didn’t need “to cede ground, really, to anyone,” Gertler said.

Zoom out: For many television fans, HBO has been the network to watch on Sunday ever since shows like Sex and the City and The Sopranos started winning over viewers in the late ’90s and early aughts.

• Dominating Sunday night viewing was so important that it was briefly a marketing slogan for the brand in the early 2000s: “Sunday is…HBO.”
• “Sundays are obviously a defining element of our brand,” Zach Enterlin, EVP, brand content and creative, streaming marketing for HBO and HBO Max, said. “You know you’ll have something great on Sunday nights. It’s part of our DNA.”

Owning Sunday nights has become even more crucial in the era of peak TV, even though subscribers can technically watch HBO shows whenever. It’s a legacy the network is eager to continue capitalizing on.

“There’s so much choice out there,” Enterlin said, “so that differentiation is really important to us.”

Continue reading here.—KS

On a Friday afternoon in February, near the end of a two-week stretch of Super Bowl bliss that turned bitter for the city of Philadelphia, a packed house of sneakerheads were momentarily distracted. The crowd at Lapstone and Hammer, a jawny Center City retailer of tasteful fits, had been given a passcode, one that would enroll them in the future of the world’s largest sportswear brand, they were told.

It was a code to enroll in Nike’s latest and highly anticipated bet on Web3, Dot Swoosh.

Nike unveiled Dot Swoosh in November, describing it as a “new, inclusive digital community and experience and a home for Nike virtual creations.” Exactly what that means is a little unclear, and the company kept things mostly under wraps at first (including rebuffing Morning Brew’s repeated requests for an interview).

That began changing late last year, as Nike set out on tour across the country, holding small workshops and seminars in sneaker stores, seeking to educate the fanbase on its Web3 ambitions.

In Philadelphia, the pitch was fuzzy—representatives weren’t so much spreading the gospel of Web3 as they were emphasizing restraint. Panelists used phrases like “taking it easy,” “methodical and intentional,” and “slow things down” when asked what a roadmap might look like. The Taco Bell NFT, this was not, at least not yet.

Despite the lack of detail, the brand’s ambitions are stark. “Just as Nike has been the conduit to sport, Dot Swoosh is going to be the conduit to Web3,” Iris Yen, head of marketing and community at Nike, told the crowd. “When we think about our mission here, it is onboarding the next millions of users to Web3.”

Sure. But it’s a gamble on a category that’s received more eye rolls than excitement, a hype cycle that’s given way to AI and chatbots. It’s a wager that makes Nike, a blue-chip brand if there ever was one, somewhat of a bellwether for Web3. If a company of its size and status can’t make Web3 work, then who can?

Click here to keep reading.—RB, MA

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

You’re foolin’ me: Here’s a “marketer’s guide to deepfakes,” courtesy of The Drum.

Crystal ball: Retail Brew takes a look at what’s next for DTC brands.

Uncertainty: Tips on how to advertise during an economic downturn.

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