How brands tapped into the coastal elegance of ‘The Five Star Weekend’

The recipe for an epic girls’ weekend includes cocktails, thematic home decor, and…a surprise guest?

At least, that’s key to the plot of The Five Star Weekend, a Peacock show based on a novel from Elin Hilderbrand, an author who is a favorite on BookTok. Starring Jennifer Garner as Hollis Shaw, a food and lifestyle influencer whose world is turned upside down when her husband suddenly dies in a car crash, the eight-episode series centers on a girls’ weekend at Hollis’s Nantucket home, an event she hosts as a way to cope with her grief. The invitees include a friend from each phase of Hollis’s life, plus one unexpected guest.

To support the original scripted series, the premade cocktail beverage brand On the Rocks Bartender Created Cocktails, as well as HomeGoods, signed on as sponsors, with On the Rocks becoming the first-ever “integrated advertiser” to sponsor for a Peacock’ companion podcast. Additional partnership elements include in-show integrations, custom content for social produced by NBCUniversal’s content studio Rock Studios, and experiential activations at the show’s July premiere.

For NBCUniversal, combining all three elements across its sponsors offered a way to weave the brands into the world of the show, bringing the series offscreen and further into audiences’ lives, according to Karen Kovacs, president of advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal.

“Knowing Nantucket typically plays this character in a lot of [Hilderbrand’s] books, the goal was really to bring partners that were authentic and could be woven into that world,” Kovacs told us.

Coastal getaway

Hilderbrand’s popularity and dedicated fanbase were a big part of the appeal for sponsors coming on, Kovacs said. In its first week of publication in 2023, The Five-Star Weekend book led sales with nearly 70,000 copies, according to Publisher’s Weekly, and since then, it’s made the rounds on social media. More generally, Hilderbrand is often lauded as the “queen of beach reads,” with 20 million copies sold across her 32 novels, and prior book-to-screen adaptations of her work have also seen success—Netflix’s 2024 series The Perfect Couple, which was adapted from Hilderbrand’s book of the same name, became the streamer’s top-performing series for two consecutive weeks after its premiere, per Variety.

For On the Rocks, the novel’s popularity among book clubs helped align the brand with the screen adaptation, according to Sarah Coury, director of US RTD marketing at On the Rocks.

“Book-club gatherings are already one of the occasions where we see On The Rocks show up—where people gather around a table to discuss and connect over a good drink,” Coury told us via email. “That’s amplified by the community and fandom that Elin Hilderbrand has curated through her many books.”

Peacock’s official companion podcast, the streamer’s first-ever for a scripted original, also presents a way to potentially deepen audience connection. The eight-episode podcast is hosted by Hilderbrand herself, and is a platform to further “dive into the storytelling,” Kovacs said. In each episode, Hildebrand takes reader questions while enjoying an On the Rocks drink in a sponsored segment called ‘Book Talk.’”

While all eight episodes of the show dropped together on July 9, the podcast episodes will release two at a time on a weekly schedule, which Kovacs said allows for both a binge experience of the series and a weekly discovery cadence for the podcast.

Hilderbrand’s podcast role also influenced the On the Rocks team’s excitement at the opportunity because it “strengthens the book-to-screen connection and creates genuinely authentic engagement,” Coury said. Hilderbrand and cast member D’Arcy Carden also feature in custom social content for On the Rocks, which was made by NBCUniversal’s Rock Studios, according to Kovacs.

“What’s unique about [Rock Studios] is, having this in-house capability, we can bring together the IP, the talent, the data, and technology all to transform our brand storytelling,” she said.

On the scene

At the show’s premiere on July 8, HomeGoods designed a gathering space that showed off its products while creating a coastal environment with the goal of bringing the show’s vibe to life. The art of hosting is central to the show’s main character, and Kovacs said HomeGoods’s ability to enable artful hosting made the brand a natural fit.

“Part of the Nantucket scene is about the coastal sophistication,” Kovacs said. “HomeGoods, it’s inspired by the art of gathering. That’s sort of the heart of Five Star Weekend.”

On the Rocks also featured in an onsite custom bar, creating an additional touchpoint for the brand. Across all elements, Coury said the goal was to increase brand awareness with an audience that overlaps with On the Rocks’s target demo.

“Ultimately, our goal is to drive brand awareness and consumer consideration with The Five Star Weekend audience on a platform as pervasive as Peacock,” Coury said. “Success looks like more of those viewers knowing that On The Rocks exists.”