American Eagle Appeals to a Gen Z audience with looks like this.
American Eagle has launched The Live Your Life Affiliate Community, a network of creators, brand advocates and trendsetters dedicated to sharing their love of the label with the world. The community is open to anyone, from seasoned influencers to creators just starting out and members will have the opportunity to create dedicated ae storefronts that can live in their bio / linktree on social media channels.
Live your life is the brand’s Anthem, first introduced by American Eagle 20 years ago. Today, it’s a call to action meant to inspire the digital generation to enjoy the world around them through optimism, culture and connection.
“We have passionate fans of the brand,” said Craig Brommers, Chief Marketing Officer of American Eagle. “We have a very entrepreneurial generation that we’re targeting with gen z. How do you activate that insight. Not only is this an influencer community that can help us create a various audiences. This is a real business opportunity for both sides of the equation.”
Creator Perks include affiliate commission, gifting opportunities, early access to new collections, exclusive discounts and features on ae sites and marketing channels.
American Eagle is giving its fans a lot of latitude to tell their stories and express themselves the way they want to. The brand doesn’t want to cramp their style. An affiliate influence known for a particular style, say streetwear, will talk about jeans, for example, in the context of her own specific look.
“The one thing I know is that gen Z has a very high bs meter, so forcing certain things you want to talk about or the brand wants to talk about is definitely not as successful as doing things more organically and more authentically for the influencers themselves,” said Brommers.
He added that the ranks of affiliates will reach the thousands. “What we have found is that momentum builds momentum and as the Live Your Life Community Builds, our expectation or hope that we’ll see a real scaling of the opportunity,” Brommers said. “A year or two ago My team would have been self-selecting a handful of creators. At AE, we work with 600 creators so that would probably go to the thousands in the coming years. We’re intrigued by any opportunity that allows us to scale the influencer community that we work with and this will be one of those levers That we’re going to be curious about and excited about building. “
“Scale is going to be so important going forward,” Brommers added. “We’ll continue to work with the big names out there, but just as important are these mid-level influencers who have a million followers, and also influencers in the tens of thousands. We’ve found those in influence in their very specific communities. It’s kind Of the diversity of the followers base and diversity of reach that will be really interesting for us to follow. “
That feedback loop is important from a marketing perspective, an operational perspective and in some cases a production perspective so that ae can react very quickly to what it’s seeing in the market. “This world is moving very fast and will continue to move at a faster pace.” Brommers said. “Trends come and go at a furious Pace today and this community will allow us to tap into trends almost instantaneously. Our ability to ask our community to create the content of the market. Today, It could take a brand a week to turn around product depending on how nimble and flexible they are. now, we can turn something around in hours. “
Apps Like Tiktok Have Had a profound effect on how the brand conducts business. And when a certainseller is the 65th bestseller one day and is the number five seller the next it’s almost always due to a creator singing its praises, said brommers. “It’s amazing how dramatically and how quickly these creators can have an impact on the revenue of our business,” he explained.
