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Marketing Brew

Entertainment

Jennimai Nguyen

marketingbrew.com

A Broadway show uses many of the typical avenues to get its name out there, from TV ads and social media campaigns to OOH components across New York City, and even the buzz of celebrity-cast involvement.

Then there is the merchandise itself, bespoke pieces often emblazoned with the show’s name or creative references to the source material, which can organically promote the show to a fan’s family, friends, coworkers, or even passers-by who are sharing the same subway car.

But what happens when fans think the merchandise is…well, uncool?

Earlier this year, popular theater TikTok creator and podcast host Jonathan Lewis, better known online as The Sweaty Oracle, posited in a 

 that “Broadway is actually allergic to producing any kind of attractive merchandise.” Lewis, who has more than 90,000 followers on the platform, critiqued several current shows’ efforts and suggested that merch is suffering from the trend of 

 and a general lack of creativity. The comment section reflected broad agreement, with several users lamenting that recent theater merchandise can feel more like a “walking ad” than a service to fans.

Michael Rego, founder of the agency The Araca Group, has created and strategized merch for long-running shows like 

as well as limited runs like last season’s 

, and he said that while merchandise is made for fans, it does also function as an ad.

“A very wise person in the advertising business once said to me that every dollar we sell in merchandise is two to three dollars we don’t have to spend in advertising,” he said.

With that said, some Broadway marketers, both established and independent, are looking to give merchandise a reboot to superserve savvy fans who want something a little different.

The Araca Group was born out of Rego and his co-founders’ desire to produce theater in New York, and the company operates a show production arm in addition to its marketing services, which Rego said informs its merchandise strategy.

“For us, merchandise really was an offshoot of our producing, content-creation mindset,” he said. “We started handling merch because we just weren’t really satisfied with a traditional form of merchandise.”

Rego traces the beginnings of Broadway merchandise back to the ’80s, when shows like 

 began selling attire and tchotchkes mainly featuring show logos. When The Araca Group came onto the scene, he said, such an approach was no longer enough.

“By the time we came into the business, we said, ‘Gosh, there’s so many other ways that intellectual property merchandises itself,’” he said. “For the sense of trying to be fashion-forward, of being on brand, having an integration with marketing, to creating a retail destination.”

Being fashion-forward seems to resonate particularly with modern fans, he said, and some fans online have shared a desire for more subtle merchandise, leaning into an “if you know, you know” aesthetic over bold show logos. Rego’s company aims to serve this audience, he told us.

“There’s a certain audience that wants to have the brag,” he said. “But then there’s a whole other audience that’s out there that wants to emulate the feeling that they have from seeing a show. It’s something more aspirational, and they don’t want to actually feel like they’re doing a hard sell when they wear a T-shirt.”

The Araca Group’s internal sales data shows that more subtle merch is in high demand, and Rego said talking to theatergoers on the ground also helps inform the types of merch and design ideas that eventually get made. But fans aren’t the only ones influencing the merch machine, with show producers, authors, and investors all being stakeholders in the merchandise business. And their opinions hold weight, especially as Broadway, like movie theaters, continues to look to make up for slow-to-return audiences.

Still though, Rego thinks that seeking to serve the audience first is what makes merch work for both the fan and business-minded.

“Ultimately, merchandise really should go back to help the marketing of the show,” Rego told us. “It should help sell tickets. It should help create word of mouth and give our audiences a feeling of being an ambassador for the show.”

For those unsatisfied with current Broadway merch, though, there is a booming sub-industry of independently designed products being made and sold on platforms like Etsy and Redbubble. While not officially sanctioned by productions, occasionally those designs catch the attention of the shows themselves.

Julia Lawrence’s T-shirt design featuring themes inspired by 

 is one of these. Lawrence, a graphic designer and self-described theater kid, originally made a design inspired by the hit show, which is about a group of high school students studying Arthur Miller’s 1953 play 

, using imagery from the original cover of the play, that quickly picked up steam among theater fans online. The show reached out to her to commission a new design, as it didn’t have the rights to the original cover art, which is how Lawrence landed on imagery depicting girls dancing and featuring the quote “I contain freaking multitudes,” a standout line from the show.

Lawrence has posted various other digital redesigns of theater merch on her TikTok page and 

, and she said her artistic approach to design is what she believes drew the 

“When I design a merch piece, [I think] ‘Would I want this hanging on my wall as a piece of art?’” Lawrence said. “I never want it to be a logo or words just slapped on a shirt. These productions are so beautiful and intricate in their works of art, and I believe the merchandise should be an extension of that.”

As theater fans connect online and shows shift their own approaches to 

, Lawrence said she believes merchandise is at a turning point, and said that tapping into the feedback loop available through social media could be a way forward.

“There are some productions that are…listening to what fans want, and so they’re building online communities, even among fans who haven’t had the chance to even see the show live,” Lawrence said. “That kind of reach, I think, creates a demand for merch that helps fans feel connected to the show, even from afar.”

A photo collage of merch from the Broadway play, John Proctor is the Villain

Why Broadway merch is going the subtler route 

Fans online have complained about feeling like a “walking ad” when wearing their favorite theater shows’ merchandise, and agencies and indie designers have taken note.

Jasmine Sheena

No, not the romantic kind: Several companies that operate streamers, e.g., NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery, are separating their linear and streaming assets.

This year, streamers are navigating splits alongside tough macroeconomic conditions, and they continue to battle it out over live sports rights as they face the ongoing challenge ofgrowing saturation. After the summer earnings season, Marketing Brew took a mid-year look at the state of the major streamers and their parent companies.

 Netflix had a stellar Q2. Its revenue in the US and Canada grew 15% year over year, according to the streamer’s Q2 earnings call in July, and executives upped full-year revenue guidance to about $45 billion.

Its ad tier saw similar success: Netflix’s upfront is officially complete, the company announced earlier this month, and it more than doubled US ad commitments. As its ad-supported tier grows, the streamer is also building out its ad tech, including an integration 

 that was first announced at Cannes Lions in June.

Netflix viewers spent more than 95 billion hours streaming programming in the first half of 2025, according to the Q2 earnings release, and in an effort to make content more discoverable, the streamer 

Looking ahead, Netflix’s content strategy promises a focus on live content, particularly on sports. In July, Netflix livestreamed 

 and the Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano boxing match concurrently, and it’s also got two NFL Christmas games in the pipeline.

“If you look at our current capabilities around live, we are in just a completely different place today compared to when we first started,” Greg Peters, company co-CEO, told investors.

While Netflix stopped regularly reporting subscriber numbers this year, it last reported 302 million subscribers 

 it had 94 million monthly active users on its ad-supported tier.

 Peacock struggled to take flight in Q2, with subscriber count flat at 41 million from the prior quarter. It’s still losing money, but it decreased its losses to $101 million (compared to $348 million in the same period last year), according to its Q2 earnings call. Perhaps to help cut its losses, Peacock hiked prices on its Premium Monthly and Premium Plus Monthly tiers in July.

There were some bright spots. Peacock grew its revenue 18% in the quarter to $1.2 billion, and about a third of NBCU’s upfront commitments were tied to Peacock, the company said. That’s partly due to the wide roster of live sports content it has coming up, like NBA games, the FIFA World Cup, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and the Super Bowl, the company said.

 Disney streamer Hulu will get folded into Disney+ next year, despite both streamers contributing to growth in Disney’s DTC division, which saw a 6% bump in revenue in the quarter. The merger announcement came as Disney forecast that both Disney+ and Hulu would add around 10 million subscribers in Q4, mostly due to Hulu. Disney will follow Netflix’s lead and stop reporting streaming subscriber data each quarter, but its last reported subscriber count was 128 million for core Disney+ subscribers, 55.5 million Hulu subscribers, and 24 million ESPN+ subscribers as of August.

Domestic average monthly revenue per paid Disney+ subscriber only grew from $8.06 to $8.09, while Hulu’s SVOD-only average revenue per subscriber grew from $12.36 to $12.40. At ESPN+, average revenue per user dropped from $6.58 to $6.40.

That doesn’t mean Disney’s streaming ambitions are limited. The company released a new streaming app called ESPN on August 21, just in time for football season, ahead of which it acquired NFL Network, the linear rights to NFL RedZone, and NFL Fantasy from the NFL. (For its part, the NFL acquired a 10% equity stake in ESPN.)

“I’ve talked about it being one of the most important steps ESPN has taken really since they went from half a season to a full season of the NFL back in 1987,” CEO Bob Iger told investors.

 more than 130 million US viewers watching on its ad tier, began airing Nascar races that same month as part of a seven-year agreement inked with Nascar, and has seen races 

 about 2 million viewers, according to executives, as well as the youngest audience Nascar broadcasts have drawn in over a decade. The streamer’s upcoming sports slate includes NBA games this fall and a Christmas Day NFL game.

Prime Video is also making some inroads on the ads side, bringing in an 

 $433 million in advertising revenue in 2024, according to research from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan cited by TV Tech. (That number is projected to grow to $806 million in 2025.) Amazon Ads also inked an ad-tech partnership with Roku that seeks to increase addressability across properties including Prime Video and The Roku Channel.

And so far, it’s been a pretty good summer for the streamer: The third season of its hit young-adult drama 

 25 million worldwide viewers in the week after its premiere, 40% higher than the first-week viewership of the show’s second season in 2023.

While writing this, we had to remind ourselves it’s no longer Max, but HBO Max. While the streamer has had a difficult time deciding on its 

, Warner Bros. Discovery has had an easier time 

 its streaming business, adding 3.4 million streaming subscribers in the quarter and growing revenue to $2.8 billion, up 8% (excluding foreign exchange). The company reported 125.7 million global streaming subscribers (57.8 million of which are in the US), and the company said it expects to clear 150 million streaming subscribers by the end of next year.

With that all said, domestic streaming average revenue per user decreased 8% to $11.16, and the streamer plans to 

 its password-sharing crackdown beginning in September as a way to potentially reverse that trend.

The company is gearing up for its upcoming split into two businesses, Warner Bros. and Discovery Global, the former of which will house HBO Max. In July, WBD set the leadership for Warner Bros., which will include David Zaslav as president and CEO and Casey Bloys as chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max.

 Although Paramount’s much-scrutinized merger with Skydance (which was recently approved by the Trump administration and may include $20 million in free ads for Trump, depending on who you believe) has dominated the headlines for the last few months, its streaming business has continued to chug along. Paramount+, which last reported 77.7 million subscribers at the end of June, saw total revenue grow 23% year over year, according to its July earnings call, and it 

 a seven-year deal with UFC for exclusive domestic streaming and broadcast rights domestically starting next year.

Global average revenue per user on Paramount+ grew 9% YoY, according to the company, but DTC ad revenue (which includes Paramount+) dropped 4%, which the company attributed to lower CPMs and increased CTV ad supply.

Looking ahead, it doesn’t look like the media giant will look to join the spinoffs party.

“We’re thinking about...the cable networks, not as declining linear assets that we need to spin off or deal with somehow,” Paramount Skydance President Jeff Shell 

 at a media event this month. “We’re thinking of those brands that we have to redefine.”

Logos of streaming services on stacked old tv boxes.

How the streamers stacked up, midyear edition

Everyone’s breaking up (their businesses).

Cookies and demogorgons and augmented reality, oh my!

Chips Ahoy recently partnered with Netflix’s 

 for a limited-edition cookie collab that will be seen far beyond the grocery store shelf. The special chocolate- and strawberry-flavored cookie, inspired by the show’s red-and-black Upside Down underworld aesthetic, became available for purchase in stores nationwide on August 11, and on the same day, Chips Ahoy promoted the collaboration via another one—an AR-based game powered by and promoted on Snapchat.

The whole move, according to Michele Nevitt, Snap’s head of CPG, sales and client partnerships, was tailor-made to target Gen Z, and it marked just the latest example of brands branching into games to cut through the noise and give audiences a way to immerse themselves in brand storytelling.

“It was all about building a gamified experience, something that’s new and unique, that can excite consumers,” Nevitt said, later adding that “This experience specifically is optimized for sharing, peer-to-peer engagement, tapping into the way Gen Z connects, competes, and discovers through storytelling.”

To access the game, which will be available through the end of the year, customers can scan a QR code on Chips Ahoy packaging leading to 

, where players are prompted to enter their emails before searching for the limited-edition cookies in an AR-powered set of scenes inspired by the show. After every level of the game, players are entered into a sweepstakes to win special Chips Ahoy x 

 merchandise, which includes everything from a branded lunchbox- and water-bottle set to an Eddie Munson-inspired electric guitar.

To take advantage of Snap’s software development kit that makes the AR motion detection possible, the game must be played on mobile. To encourage that mobile play, Snapchat is hosting an AR lens promoting the collaboration and directing users to play the game.

“For us, it’s a great way to be able to connect with consumers in a different way,” Nevitt said. “Our consumers want something more than traditional advertising, something that they can immerse themselves within the unit.”

Snap reaches over 75% of Gen Z in more than 25 countries, according to Nevitt, and Chips Ahoy was focused on engaging those younger customers with this campaign following other activations that sought to do the same, including a Big Chewy Cookie partnership with ComplexCon and Big Sean that involved a merch collaboration and an 18-foot cookie installation at the pop culture festival.

“Chips Ahoy over-indexes among Gen Z, and our ambition is to be 

 go-to chocolate chip sweet treat for Gen Z households,” Sabrina Sierant, senior director at US Chips Ahoy, told us in an email. “Snapchat is incredibly popular with Gen Z and one of their most-used social media apps, so it was a no-brainer to leverage the platform to bring this idea to life.”

This was the first time Chips Ahoy has delved into a gamified ad experience, according to Siernat, but interactive, gameplay-focused campaigns are only growing in popularity. Netflix recently 

, joining brands like Duracell, Heineken, and M&M’s, which have all gone gamer mode in recent years. Campaigns that take advantage of gamification can see a 48% increase in engagement levels and up to 22% more customer retention, according to 

“It continues to be a trend that Gen Z and millennials are continuing to use, so it’s been something that has been part of our creative toolkit,” Nevitt said. “It will certainly continue to be something that we’re going to partner with clients to build.”

On the IP side of things, Chips Ahoy partnered with 

 to “be at the forefront of culture and drive brand relevance and excitement with our Gen Z target,” Sierant said.

The final installment of Netflix’s beloved franchise, which last released a season in 2022, will be released in three parts, the first of which is scheduled to be released in November, and Sierat said the cookie collab is one way she’s hoping fans can engage with the show early while waiting to see how the Hawkins gang’s story will conclude.

Chips Ahoy isn’t the only brand getting in on the 

 hype early, either. The WNBA’s Indiana Fever, Dungeons & Dragons, Lego, and Palermo’s Pizza have all 

 connections to the show’s lore since late July, and there are plenty of months to go for more brands to take a trip to the Upside Down.

A photo composite of Chips Ahoy and Stranger Things campaign images, a dark chocolate chip cookie filled with red frosting.

How Chips Ahoy gamified the Upside Down

The cookie brand partnered with “Stranger Things” for a special-edition flavor that it is promoting through an AR game made possible by Snapchat. 

Alison Brie and Dave Franco have been busy 

 each other’s sweat—but if that’s not enough to pique people’s interest in the duo’s new horror film 

, the out-of-the-box online campaign just might.

To drum up hype for the movie, which explores a codependent relationship through a body-horror lens and was produced by and stars the real-life couple, distributor Neon pulled a couple of stunts online, including releasing a 

 using special tech to track how a viewer’s pupil dilated during the film’s most eye-popping moments, offering to 

 of someone who proposed at a movie theater, and offering free couples’ therapy to anyone who felt the film’s themes hit a little 

The free therapy offer was in partnership with online mental health provider OurRitual, which supplied a free couples’ counseling session to fans who saw the film in theaters. Eran Yorkovsky, VP of marketing at OurRitual, said the partnership brought in high engagement rates, and he is hoping this campaign is only a piece of how the company can collaborate with the entertainment industry.

“[The film] aligns very well with what we are trying to help couples with,” Yorkovsky told us. “Although it’s a horror movie, and our goal is to make sure your life is not a horror movie, it felt right.”

Yorkovsky said Neon first approached OurRitual to collaborate, but admitted that the cold reachout “[almost] fell between the cracks.” The studio, he said, had initiated contact via OurRitual’s online support form, and while staffers found the message “strange,” Yorkovsky quickly took the call. After meeting with Neon’s team to discuss the potential partnership and watching an early version of the film, he was on board.

“I felt this is something crazy enough that it might work,” he said.

To participate in the giveaway, moviegoers were required to upload a photo of their movie ticket to OurRitual’s website before getting a free session. The company capped free sessions at 50 people, and Yorkovsky said while there were a few no-shows, a majority of those selected to receive a free session followed through. Though the company is still waiting on full results, Yorkovsky said the campaign led to several people converting their free session into full subscriptions.

“They leveraged the taste that they got from the campaign and stayed after for a longer time period,” he said. “People saw that opportunity and seized it.”

OurRitual’s investors were also “very happy seeing us at the forefront and as a brand that is recognized and that other brands want to partner with,” Yorkovsky said.

OurRitual promoted the giveaway primarily on its own social media alongside Neon and the actors’ own accounts, and it didn’t dip into paid media. Yorkovsky said he felt it resonated even without any ad dollars because it supplied the audience with something they actually wanted.

“When something provides value, it works regardless,” he said.

This isn’t OurRitual’s first time working with Hollywood behind the scenes: it already has an existing relationship with the Showtime show 

, as the show’s host, Orna Guralnik, also holds the company’s chief clinical officer role. But this campaign was the first time OurRitual had partnered with a movie studio, and Yorkovsky said he’s gotten the itch to see what else is out there in entertainment partnership–land.

“We have our general collaboration agenda, which is mostly around influencers in the space of mental health,” he said. “This was kind of a surprise and a very ad hoc one, but it gave us an appetite to do more things…in a similar way.”

Amid a sea of several summer horror releases, 

’s unexpected offerings have also prompted some fans to recognize Neon’s broader marketing approach. As one Instagram commenter put it, “Every time I think the marketing team can’t keep this up, you all deliver. Kudos to the whole team.”

The film, which hit theaters on July 30, has so far raked in more than $21 million at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo

A movie still from the movie Together starring Allison Brie and Dave Franco with their foreheads touching.

Why OurRitual offered free therapy sessions to “Together” ticket-holders

OurRitual partnered with the Neon film “Together” to provide free therapy sessions to fans in a stunt that felt “crazy enough that it might work,” a marketing exec said.

Why an online couples’ therapy service got involved with a buzzy body-horror movie

Theaters aren’t just places to see movies—they can serve as a place for fans to gather, hang out, and build community.

That’s part of the reason why BoxLunch partnered up with theaters ahead of the release of 

Ahead of the release of the film, the merchandise brand, which sells movie-themed merchandise collections in stores and online, partnered with Fandango to offer free movie tickets to BoxLunch customers who spent $100 or more in-store, as well as free exclusive collectors’ pins during opening night at Regal Cinemas nationwide.

BoxLunch also showed up on the ground at San Diego Comic-Con in July to connect with fans and local residents while handing out free tickets to a screening at Regal.

Rick Vargas, SVP of merchandise and marketing, told us the activations were designed to showcase BoxLunch as a brand and create excitement around a major movie launch, but it didn’t end there. The brand has a longstanding partnership with the nonprofit Feeding America, where every $10 spent with BoxLunch helps donate a meal to food banks in the Feeding America network, and the goal, Vargas said, was also to emphasize the importance of building relationships with consumers in local communities.

“At the end of the day, we’re about giving back to the community, and specifically, giving back to your community, wherever you are,” Vargas said.

Though BoxLunch has been to SDCC before, working with a local Regal theater this year allowed the brand to demonstrate its ability to connect with audiences and be part of the hype around 

“Because of all of the excitement around the film, this [was] a great opportunity for us just to say ‘Hey, we feel the energy. We want to be part of this,’” Vargas said. “Let’s go and create an experience for our fans and get them into the movie theaters and really showcase the film and showcase what BoxLunch can do and how important it is for us to support the fans.”

At BoxLunch activation on the ground at SDCC, all available tickets were given away within two minutes of the brand’s announcement on its social media channels, Vargas told us. The brand announced several ticket drops throughout the day at different locations around SDCC via its Instagram Stories, and interested fans had to follow along for location reveals.

BoxLunch is nearing its 10-year anniversary, but as a still relatively new brand, Vargas said being on the ground at events is a key part of integrating the brand into pop culture and connecting with fans.

“We need to be there. We need to make sure that we understand what the fans are excited about, even beyond what we did with 

” Vargas said. “We go and we ask the customers, ask the fans, ‘Hey, what are you guys excited about?’”

BoxLunch’s partnership with Fandango continues through mid-August, and Vargas said the brand will continue to lean on social media, email, and in-store messaging to communicate its commitment to fans and philanthropy. So far, BoxLunch has been tracking engagement with social posts on its own channels, Fandango’s, and its theater partners to gather feedback on the campaign, as

well as seeking feedback from consumers in-person.

“With these relationships, we’re seeing consistency post release, where we keep the customers engaged with the film, we keep the customers engaged with the content,” Vargas said. “They’re just as excited this week as they were during the release week, which is atypical.”

Connecting the BoxLunch message to a theater audience was natural, and after 

leaves theaters, Vargas said there’s still more he’s hoping to explore in terms of winning over in-theater audiences.

“There’s still a lot that we can do going forward in terms of working more closely with the theaters, so they can also kind of amplify what we're trying to do [with Feeding America],” Vargas said. “But I think getting the folks into the theaters, into the stores, to tell that story and to kind of showcase the impact that customers can have to their specific communities is really important."

A composited image of screenshots from BoxLunch's Instagram, including cosplayers dressed as superheroes being interviewed.

Why BoxLunch teamed up with Regal ahead of ‘Fantastic Four’ 

 The 10-year-old fan merch brand gave away tickets and collectors’ items  as it emphasized  giving back to the community, an exec told us.

Hunter Ellenbarger didn’t teach Logan Lerman how to talk like an internet girlie—but when Lerman uttered the words, “Girlie, that’s a hard no. Mama, no,” during a video shoot to promote the movie 

Ellenbarger knew he had social marketing gold on his hands.

Ellenbarger is the founder of Star Quality, the design practice and consultancy behind some of the social assets in the online campaign for the Sony Pictures Classics film, a romantic comedy starring Lerman alongside Molly Gordon that premiered in late July. Working alongside Sony’s in-house marketing team, Ellenbarger and his team handled creator partnerships and creative shoots, producing five longform videos for Sony’s YouTube as well as various short-form cuts and paid social ads.

While filming one of these longer interview-based videos, Lerman began speaking in internet, which Ellenbarger identified as a perfect moment to cut into an ad to prompt viewers to buy tickets to the film. That kind of tongue-in-cheek humor, which often hits best with online audiences, brought in more than 350,000 views on a single organic X post; Ellenbarger said the video ended up being one of the film campaign’s better performing pieces of content. The video is emblematic of Ellenbarger’s approach to marketing, which he describes as balancing the highbrow with the lowbrow.

“[My approach] puts the talent, who are these Hollywood stars that people have grown up with, are seeing on acclaimed TV shows, and it makes them more peer to peer, which is how we consume TikTok creators,” Ellenbarger said.

Star Quality began working with Sony Pictures Classics during its campaign for the black comedy 

in 2023, where Ellenbarger worked on exploring new creative formats for paid ads outside of trailers and teasers. When 

 came around two years later, he was called on once again to create bespoke ads for social designed to stand out from the crowd of film marketing online.

“We always filter our ideation process through, ‘What do we want people to understand about this movie?’” Ellenbarger told Marketing Brew. “I always have this philosophy of, think like a fan.”

meant focusing less on typical promotional material, like the actors’ preparation process, and more on interpretations of the film’s big themes, like creating an anonymous hotline for those with dating advice questions, which actors answered on screen. Ellenbarger finds inspiration from internet series that have already seen success, including 

both of which follow easily identifiable formats.

Leading creative ad shoots aimed at online success requires a level of buy-in from the talent, Ellenbarger said, and he said that the level of enthusiasm to expect from actors or musicians varies across projects. But it’s always a positive when A-list talent is willing to participate in his ideas.

“Everyone’s a little bit different. It depends on how they want their own personal brands to seem,” he said. “But I think the [artists] that I’ve noticed be more successful as far as returns at the box office or album sales…are the ones that are a little bit more down to play the game.”

Ellenbarger found the cast to be particularly game for his “more playful, silly ideas,” and the film went on to score a top 10 box office debut weekend at $1.15 million, which he said felt like a win considering that the limited release went up against major franchises like 

Beyond social videos, Star Quality was responsible for what Ellenbarger calls “creator matchmaking,” which involves finding and commissioning influencer partnerships for sponsored content.

partnered with comedian Hannah Esky and the popular Instagram account @afffirmations. Esky, known for what Ellenbarger described as “unhinged tarot readings,” made 

 in her signature style touching on plot points from the film without giving anything away; @afffirmations also created a 

 mirroring its general post format featuring stills from the movie and red carpet images of Gordon and Lerman.

“[It’s] less like mechanical influencer marketing and more like brand influencer marketing,” Ellenbarger said of his partnership process.

To find the right creator partners, Ellenbarger said there’s no secret sauce or perfect tool. Instead, he said it comes down to “having really high screen time” and “rabbit hole-ing a lot.” As creator partnerships continue to be a major segment of Star Quality’s work, he’s looking to hire people who understand the internet the way he does—the kind of person who maybe used to run a Tumblr fan blog or can help craft the next viral TikTok sound.

“That’s the type of internet user that is going to find the right people that will actually move the needle,” Ellenbarger said.

Two people at a table covered with a white tablecloth, they're both holding the receiver of a red corded phone.

 Inside the social campaign for ‘Oh, Hi!’ 

Hunter Ellenbarger’s boutique agency Star Quality led the charge on some of the indie film’s most resonant social assets.

 Inside the lowbrow/highbrow approach powering the ‘Oh, Hi!’ social campaign

Kelsey Sutton

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself 

Mayte Alquicira is marketing and operations manager, loyalty, at Cinépolis Cinemas USA, a luxury theater brand. She’s also worked as the brand’s guest experience manager and supported the brand’s expansion into international markets.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? 

I help create emotional connections between moviegoers and our brand. My role is all about designing the journeys, from first visit to lifelong loyalty, that make people feel seen, valued, and excited to come back. It’s part storytelling, part strategy, and part data detective work.

Redesigning and upgrading our Cinépolis Rewards program. We took a deeply customer-centric approach grounded in data but brought to life through storytelling and emotional connection. It wasn’t just about points and perks; it was about building a loyalty experience that felt personal, rewarding, and human. The most fulfilling part? Seeing members reengage because the program finally spoke to what they actually value.

. It’s such a bold example of creative crossover: two seemingly unrelated brands coming together in a way that just works. That kind of surprise-and-delight moment is the best proof that when you understand your audience and have a smart creative team, the possibilities are endless. It’s the ultimate flex of efficient, unexpected brand synergy.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: 

I’m a certified yoga instructor! Yoga keeps me grounded and teaches me to approach challenges with curiosity and compassion. I’m currently building an online yoga studio that blends movement with mindfulness, especially for people navigating busy lives.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? 

I’m most optimistic about AI and personalization. When done well, it creates space for more relevant, thoughtful interactions that genuinely improve customer experience.

But I’m least optimistic about AI when it replaces rather than enhances the human touch. Brands risk becoming robotic and indistinguishable if they lose the heart behind the message. Efficiency shouldn’t come at the cost of emotional connection.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? 

 on Instagram. It’s a quick-hit inspiration board for marketers. I also like the podcasts 

 with Guy Raz, which features real stories of entrepreneurs and the power of brand-building, and 

 with Robbie Kellman Baxter—I’m fascinated by subscription models, and this one’s full of insights. And while not directly a marketing podcast, 

 by NPR offers an incredible lens into how audiences perceive media—a great resource for anyone in entertainment marketing.

Marketing Brew Coworking series featuring Mayte Alquicira.