Unfolding Gen Z for Hollister
this is Hollister
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Going Beyond the Hype: Hollister’s Gen Z Reality Check
As Hollister looked to strengthen its connection with Gen Z, the brand partnered with BAM to deliver an international, immersive research programme focused on understanding the real behaviours, expectations, and retail mindsets of today’s youth. Commissioned by global youth marketing agency Archrival, BAM took the lead in the full UK and European delivery of the study, designed to equip Hollister with strategic insight into how this new generation navigates fashion, identity, and experience.
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Immersive Insight, Powered by People
BAM’s research programme placed the target audience at the centre—not in spreadsheets, but in their natural environments. Our approach combined multiple qualitative techniques to get beneath the surface:
Shop-alongs in central London and Berlin, capturing live commentary as students interacted with fashion retail spaces.
In-home lifestyle interviews to understand daily habits, fashion use, and values.
On-campus focus groups, moderated to stimulate honest discussion around brand perception and fashion priorities.
Parent interviews to provide generational and cultural context.
These formats allowed Hollister to hear directly from the voices that matter most, without filtering through abstract data.
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Cross-Market Depth With Local Control
BAM coordinated the full end-to-end execution of the project across London and Berlin, recruiting Gen Z participants from diverse backgrounds and managing all logistics, moderation, compliance, and cultural localisation. We conducted all session planning, scripting, filming, analysis, and post-capture processing—ensuring every session ran smoothly and produced usable, high-quality content.
We captured not just words, but behaviours, emotional responses, and social context—creating a nuanced picture of the Gen Z experience that fed into strategic recommendations for the brand.
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Deliverables Designed to Power Real-World Decisions
Our team provided Hollister with a toolkit of strategic outputs, including:
A full qualitative research findings deck, formatted for internal team use. Video highlight reels and raw footage from each session for deeper internal reflection. Cultural comparisons and Gen Z preference maps across the UK and German markets. Tailored experience recommendations to influence store layout, product presentation, and comms tone
The final delivery provided Hollister and Archrival with rich, human-centred insights to guide how the brand speaks to and designs for Gen Z, now and in the future.
