How American Eagle is targeting Gen Alpha and millennials with its new brand platform

American Eagle Outfitters is launching a new brand platform designed to expand its marketing strategy beyond its core Gen Z audience to encompass the two age cohorts on either end of Gen Z—millennials and Gen Alpha. American Eagle today unveiled its “Live Your Life” platform, reviving a nearly 20-year-old slogan trademarked by the fashion retailer in the mid-2000s. Underlying the brand’s new platform is a call to action for consumers to break out of their social media feeds and engage with the world and the people around them. That desire to engage offline was repeated by millennial, Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers alike when American Eagle began collecting consumer insights about “what customers want in a retail brand” last fall, Craig Brommers, chief marketing officer of American Eagle, told Ad Age. Also read: 20 brands resonating with Gen Z right now “Sometimes, brands will launch a new platform or new positioning when they’re trying to figure something out or trying to course correct. But the reality is, based on our recent earnings calls, American Eagle actually has momentum behind us,” he said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by American Eagle (@americaneagle) Revenue rose and hit company records in each of the last five quarters, including a 6% increase to more than $1.1 billion in the recent first quarter. “As we look around at our competitive set in this ultra-competitive retail environment, I think, increasingly, we’re bumping up against … Shein, Amazon and other players,” Brommers said. Fast fashion giant Shein raked in an estimated $36.5 billion in total revenue in 2023, while Amazon generated about $8.9 billion in revenue from its fashion category alone, according to data from e-commerce analytics company ECDB. “And at the end of the day, we're still a specialty retailer, where brand is just as important as product and price,” he added. “So, we thought, at a time of strength, it was a great time to articulate what we stand for going forward.” ‘Live Your Life’ on film American Eagle revealed its reimagined “Live Your Life” platform with a dreamlike ad starring Gen Z tennis champion Coco Gauff, Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and actresses Nikki Rodgriuez and Kristine Froseth of teen drama TV series “My Life with the Walter Boys” and “The Buccaneers,” respectively. Gauff is also collaborating with the retailer on a fashion collection releasing in mid-August that includes a jean jacket emblazoned with her famous quote after winning the U.S. Open in 2023, “Thank you to the people who didn’t believe in me.” Creative agency Shadow oversaw talent casting for the campaign. That ad is just a small piece of the sprawling influencer marketing strategy American Eagle will be rolling out over the next two months, Brommers said. In August, the brand will kick off a video series in partnership with the three creators behind the social media account Life on Film—Grant Weintrob, Griffin Katz and Christian Baiocco. The series will follow the same style as Life on Film’s typical videos, where one of the three creators hands a disposable camera to a stranger (or, in some cases, a celebrity) and asks them to capture photos while on vacation or enjoying a night out. The creators then develop the photos and transform them into a video. Also read: Marketing to Gen Alpha, Gen Z and millennials Over 200 influencers are participating in that social media series, ranging from creators to athletes to activists, along with some of American Eagle’s previous celebrity partners, Brommers said. The retailer’s episodic approach to working with the trio behind Life on Film is rooted in Brommers’ belief that American Eagle has evolved from “a retailer talking about products” to “programmers of entertainment,” he said. “We’re not just in the retail business—we’re in the entertainment business, and we want to continue to grab the attention of our core customer base,” Brommers said. “So, getting people to tune into what's next, whether from a content perspective or from a product perspective, is very important.” Partnering with Life on Film, he said, “allows us the opportunity to develop kind of an episodic point of view, and hopefully keep our audience engaged and keep checking in for what's next, what's new [and] what people are up to.” @lifeonfilm.27 life on film #lifeonfilm #disposablecamera #onthestreet #usc #frat #sorority #gameday #college #tailgate #darty #football #uscfootball #pinterestaesthetic ♬ original sound - Life on Film Gathering such a large group of creators to be part of the video series is part of American Eagle’s “flood the feed” strategy, where the brand recruits dozens (or hundreds, in this case) of creators to post about the brand en masse, he said. “You’re trying to develop a movement. You’re trying to develop scale. You’re trying to develop advocacy on behalf of your brand that has become extremely important in a world where all of our attention spans are shorter because there’s so much to tune into.” American Eagle will also encourage consumers to participate in the series it’s creating with Life on Film by providing user-generated content “that shows them ‘living their life,’” Brommers said. “In almost every single case,” UGC from ordinary shoppers or American Eagle employees outperforms “even the most beautifully produced content” created by the brand, he said. The campaign will also include several out-of-home elements to complement the brand platform’s celebration of “human-to-human” offline interaction, Brommers said. He declined to comment on the details of what the OOH push will include, but offered a hint in the form of, “We hope that people are ultimately going to say, in the next four to six weeks, ‘How did American Eagle pull that off?’” Assessing Gen Alpha The consumer research American Eagle conducted to inform its new platform marked its first major exploration of the burgeoning Gen Alpha audience, Brommers said. In investment bank Piper Sandler’s latest Taking Stock With Teens survey, American Eagle ranked second on the respondents’ list of top clothing brands, with 6% of over 6,000 teen respondents—the younger end of which are members of Gen Alpha—citing it as their favorite. Roughly 3% of the respondents pointed to Shein, which American Eagle views as its competitor, as their preferred clothing brand. Just over one-third of respondents cited Nike, which took first place, as their favorite clothing brand. “We're beginning to do quite a bit of research on Gen Alpha and learning what’s important to them,” Brommers said. “They haven’t exactly established a huge difference from Gen Z yet … But this younger generation is growing up quicker and looking to influencers, creators and sports stars, in some cases, for inspiration—and certainly for style recommendations.” Because the oldest members of Gen Alpha will only be turning 14 this year, “we can’t and won’t exactly go after [most of] them in terms of direct advertising,” he added. “But we do know that they’re going to be in our stores. We know that they’re beginning to see us in their social feeds. We know that they are very much a generation that is going to multiple sites, putting stuff in shopping bags and then deciding on what to purchase. So, we believe that ‘Live Your Life’ will give us an opportunity to grow awareness [among Gen Alpha] from a brand perspective, and from a product perspective as well.”

How American Eagle is targeting Gen Alpha and millennials with its new brand platform

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