Craig Brommers, American Eagle Outfitters
Prior to stepping into the role of chief marketing officer for American Eagle, Craig Brommers had stints as a lead marketer at outfitters Speedo, Calvin Klein, Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap, as well as smoke brand Juul. Since taking the marketing lead at American Eagle, Brommers has leapt headfirst into the metaverse.
To complement its spring 2021 line of jeans, American Eagle partnered with Snapchat to launch an augmented reality filter that allowed users to preview and purchase the denim using their phone camera. In the summer, the youth clothier further digitized with a fashion line for Bitmoji, the avatar emoticon app. And it debuted its first line of NFTs in early November, with a fashion forward twist. The tokens, which sold for only $1, could be redeemed for a physical patch to sew onto American Eagle’s denim. Brommers said the first "drop" sold within 30 minutes, the second within three minutes and the third in just 90 seconds.
“Gen Z continues to evolve the ways in which they shop and interact with brands, and to stay connected with this digitally-native generation, we continuously evolve by being first to introduce innovative, virtually-led initiatives that are authentic to AE," Brommers said in an email.
For holiday, American Eagle is continuing to lean into augmented reality functionality on Snap with a holiday catalog-style lens and the recent debut of the latest version of its shopping portal on the platform, Brommers said.