Banana Republic casts Jack Innanen as four travel agents in The Agency, a five-part TikTok-first mockumentary series

Key Takeaways

• Banana Republic launched The Agency, a five-part short-form comedy series starring Jack Innanen, on 14 October.

• Innanen plays four employees of Travel & Tours, a fictional New York travel agency, with Taylor Ortega as a corporate consultant.

• The series is TikTok-first, with weekly episodes and behind-the-scenes content across Banana Republic's channels.

• COPE Global created the campaign with production company Grand Nature, which shot it in a single day.

Banana Republic has gone back to its travel roots in the most unexpected place possible, as the retailer launched The Agency on 14 October, a five-part mockumentary series in which comedian Jack Innanen plays four employees of a struggling New York travel agency. The TikTok-first series follows Travel & Tours, a fictional agency trying to survive an increasingly automated world, and Banana Republic describes it as its first foray into channel-first original programming, with Innanen involved in the creative process.

Innanen first found fame through viral comedy sketches before moving into television, so a format that asks him to play an entire office of colleagues sits very close to the comedy that built his following. Taylor Ortega, his co-star in Netflix's Big Mistakes, joins him as the consultant sent from corporate, and the clothes the agents wear carry the brand's message in the background while the jokes take the lead.

A struggling travel agency faces a corporate shake up as Banana Republic brings its heritage to TikTok

Innanen plays the agency's whole core team, which means he appears as senior manager Howard Neale, cruise expert Barry, Dean from the Adventure Desk and Roland from the European Desk, while Milo Tucker-Meyer plays Eli, the intern who also happens to be Howard's son. The opening episode, The Fax, runs to about two minutes and introduces a French-accented agent, an awkward one, a smooth one and a knife-brandishing adventure specialist before Ortega's businesslike Dana arrives with orders to modernise the underperforming business or see it shut down, a memo that naturally arrives by ear-splitting fax.

The wardrobe does a lot of quiet work across the series, because each character's outfit reflects Banana Republic's design codes of modern utility, timeless ease and premium fabrics such as linen and leather. Dean wears pieces from the brand's Archive Reissue collection, Roland appears in a leather bomber and trousers and Barry pairs linen with a navy cashmere sweater, while Dana arrives in a tailored suit with a black henley and Eli dresses in a vintage Banana Republic tee with baggy jeans, so the generational gap between the office's veterans and its intern shows up in the clothes before anyone says a word.

The series was created by agency COPE Global with production company Grand Nature, which shot it using handheld camerawork and 1970s-inspired sets that nod to the brand's history, and the whole project took around two weeks from start to finish, including a single shoot day. An extra behind-the-scenes layer shows the real cast, crew and agency playing fictional versions of themselves as Banana Republic Productions. Chris Abitbol, founder and executive producer at Grand Nature, said "This is exactly why we set up Grand Nature: to create original IP that audiences actually want to see," and added that "COPE has the vision to champion that kind of work, and we're proud to help bring it to life with them."

Meena Anvary, Chief Marketing Officer at Banana Republic, linked the series directly to the brand's origins, saying "Storytelling has been part of Banana Republic's DNA since it was founded by a journalist and an illustrator in 1978." She went on to say "It reimagines our heritage through a contemporary lens and invites a new generation into our world with stories that entertain." The first episode debuted on 14 October, and the remaining four will follow weekly across Banana Republic's channels alongside behind-the-scenes captures.

Banana Republic was founded by a journalist and an illustrator in 1978 and reissued its adventure archive in April 2026

The travel agency setting connects to a story Banana Republic has been telling all year, because the retailer was founded in San Francisco in 1978, and storytelling, travel and discovery have shaped the brand for nearly 50 years. In April it launched the Archive Reissue collection, a 20-piece, largely dual-gender capsule of adventure garments drawn from its archives, including a yellow nubuck fisherman's jacket and a packable cotton rain jacket that folds into a tote bag. That launch partnered with The Explorers Club, cast actor Joshua Jackson in a campaign shot at the club's Manhattan clubhouse and revived the brand's original catalogue order line as 1-800-ARCHIVE, which means The Agency carries the same heritage into comedy.

Innanen brings an audience that already follows him across platforms, as the 27-year-old Canadian actor and comedian now stars as Paul Baker in FX's Adults, whose second season premiered in August 2026, and in Netflix's Big Mistakes, which has been renewed for a second season. He has also been named on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, and he next appears in his feature film debut, Purgatory, which gives Banana Republic a star whose comedy reputation was built online and is now crossing into television and film.

Short scripted series fronted by recognisable faces have become a popular way for brands to reach audiences on social platforms, with Maybelline, Crocs and Marc Jacobs all running microdrama campaigns recently, although one early review noted that The Agency's product placement is far less heavy-handed than many of them. It follows a similar idea to Subway casting Will Arnett as five characters in its Feed Your SUBconscious campaign, where one comedian playing several roles becomes the whole creative idea and the format can stretch across many episodes.

With four more episodes still to arrive on a weekly schedule, The Agency has room to develop its running jokes about an analogue office in an automated world, and every one of them puts Banana Republic's linen, leather and archive pieces on screen in the kind of travel setting the brand was built around almost half a century ago.