The old, cabana-like facade of a Hollister store is as familiar to the American mall-goer as the scent of Auntie Anne’s pretzels. So when people started noticing some of those storefronts being converted into sock stores, haunted houses, escape rooms, and axe-throwing venues in recent years, they might have assumed the retail chain was still struggling after its 2000s heyday.

Since last July, however, Hollister’s in-store traffic and revenue are up, thanks in part to a rebranding effort and a TikTok campaign to support it that began around nine months ago. The campaign is part of a partnership with IF7, the same Gen Z consultancy that worked with Hollister’s parent company Abercrombie & Fitch on its TikTok strategy aimed at a more millennial audience, which played a role in the brand’s resurgence.

“The idea was, ‘Okay, we’ve seen this incredible success for Abercrombie…How can we approach this differently with these learnings to try to put Hollister on a similar trajectory?’” Harley Block, CEO and co-founder of IF7, told us.

With the help of creators, Hollister’s TikTok engagement rates in February and March were up more than 136% compared to summer 2022, representing all-time highs, Block said. In the fourth quarter of last year, Hollister brand sales grew 9% year over year, hitting $698 million and achieving a third consecutive quarter of growth—a signal, the company said in its earnings report, that the brand is “reconnecting with teen customers.”

Continue reading here.—KH

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In the NBA, superstar players must walk a fine line. It’s OK to project confidence in your abilities, but excessive bombast and arrogance can be frowned upon by commentators and fans alike.

Jason Campbell, chief creative officer of the agency Translation, which has produced numerous campaigns for the NBA in recent years, aimed to capture that dynamic in the agency’s new campaign promoting the NBA Playoffs, which kicked off last week, called “Playoff Mode. It’s a Thing.”

“We kind of dug into the truth of what happens in the playoffs, which is that players take it up one notch, but they can’t say that they take it up one notch,” Campbell said. “They don’t want to jinx themselves.”

The campaign, which is scheduled to run throughout the playoffs, will span about 400 pieces of content, Campbell said, spread across linear TV, digital, and social, as well as out-of-home placements in more than 10 US cities.

It’s anchored by a one-minute clip featuring NBA stars including Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokić, Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Each player denies that “playoff mode” is a thing, to the bemusement of comedian Chris Rock, who narrates the spot.

“It’s clearly a thing,” Rock says as the clip ends.

Read more here.—JN

Last summer’s smash hit Oppenheimer keeps paying off.

The historical drama made more than $970 million at the global box office for Universal Pictures, and it’s now doing record numbers on Peacock. Oppenheimer is its most-viewed pay-one film (meaning a movie available for the first time on TV after leaving theaters and after a rental or purchase period) in the streamer’s history, CFO Jason Armstrong told investors during Comcast’s first quarter earnings call last Thursday.

Oppenheimer’s strong viewership is just one win for Peacock. The platform’s losses have continued to narrow, totaling $639 million in the quarter, smaller than the $704 million loss a year earlier. Peacock’s revenue, meanwhile, jumped to $1.1 billion in the quarter, compared to $685 million in Q1 2023. The service now counts 34 million paid subscribers, a 12 million year over year increase, according to Michael Cavanagh, Comcast president; average revenue per user in the quarter was around $10, the company reported.

Touchdown: Sports programs have helped deliver some recent viewership wins as well. Peacock’s exclusive airing of the NFL Wild Card game in January was the largest live-streamed event ever, NBCU said, and Armstrong added that it contributed to an influx of paid subscribers; the airing of WWE’s WrestleMania, meanwhile, was the platform’s most-watched entertainment event yet, the company previously said. Next on Peacock’s roster are the Kentucky Derby on May 4, as well as the Paris Olympics, which have already earned $1.2 billion in ad sales. The service will also air NFL games, including one in São Paulo, Brazil, Cavanagh said.

Non-sports content, like TV shows Ted and The Traitors, has been creating strong engagement too, according to Cavanagh.

Overall, viewers are “spending 90% of their time on the platform viewing non-sports programming,” he said.—JS

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