American Eagle is taking a page from its past for the launch of a latest brand platform, giving fresh energy to a 20-year-old “Live Your Life” slogan to advertise self-expression, inclusion and acceptance. The platform, which debuts Thursday (July 25), coincides with the rollout of the brand’s back-to-school campaign.
“Live Your Life” — a phrase trademarked by American Eagle for over a decade — has long been an element of the retailer’s marketing, first officially appearing for the 2012 back-to-school season. Today, the slogan is being modernized for Gen Z and shall be ingrained in a fall campaign that features a partnership with 2023 U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff. College football appearances, 3D billboards and a collaboration with Life on Film to capture disposable camera footage round out the hassle.
“Our intent is that ‘Live Your Life’ shall be with us for a lot of, a few years to come back, so our team really views this as a jumping off point,” said American Eagle CMO Craig Brommers. “Back-to-school really is our Super Bowl and we’re spending a variety of money around talent and surprise activations and content creation to chop through initially.”
The revival of “Live Your Life” was inspired by consumer research across Gen Alpha, millennials and the retailer’s goal Gen Z audience that sought to uncover how the generations regard American Eagle and what they give the impression of being for in a clothing brand. Among the findings was the sentiment that the retailer is loyal to values like self-expression. Respondents more broadly also indicated a hunger for human connection and real experiences.
American Eagle is leaning into each of those insights with “Live Your Life,” Brommers said, noting his belief that “iconic brands run toward who they’re.”
“Just like ‘Just Do It’ for Nike or ‘My Calvin’s’ from Calvin Klein and even ‘Aerie Real,’ there’s just a few things that make sense,” said Brommers.
New energy, same denim
American Eagle’s fall campaign is headlined by tennis star Gauff, who is ready to compete within the Paris Olympics, together with Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence and actors Kristine Froseth and Nikki Rodriguez, who star in Gen Z-focused series “The Buccaneers” and “My Life with the Walter Boys,” respectively. Through its tie-up with Gauff, the retailer will unveil a Coco Gauff x American Eagle collaboration on Aug. 15 that features a nod to the athlete’s iconic U.S. Open quote, “Thank you to the individuals who didn’t imagine in me.”
Talent featured within the retailer’s campaign, who will appear in digital, in-store, social and out-of-home ads, were chosen to raised goal the “Live Your Life” mantra at Gen Z. Brommers described the group because the “hustle generation.”
“These are multi-hyphenated individuals who really encapsulate Gen Z,” the exec said. “They’re athletes, they’re activists, they’re communicators, they’re business people.”
The ambassadors also satisfy what the marketer describes as American Eagle’s “passion pillars,” or the important thing interests of Gen Z, which include categories like gaming, social media, sports and community impact. The retailer usually leverages a customer panel consisting of around 2,000 people aged 15-25 to collect insights that drive culturally relevant marketing. Plenty of marketing efforts have been inspired by the panel, like last yr’s tie-up with Amazon Prime Series “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
“We have the most effective rattling jeans on the market and all of the market share data would showcase that, but I don’t think you’ll be able to be competing at the extent we’re competing at just on the rational, I believe you really do should compete on the emotional as well.”
Craig Brommers
CMO, American Eagle
American Eagle’s latest move comes at a high point for the retailer, which reported record first quarter revenue of $1.1 billion. The back-to-school season is a significant opportunity for the brand to maintain momentum rolling, though spending for the period is predicted to fall barely from $31.9 billion last yr to $31.3 billion in 2024, in keeping with Deloitte. Other forecasts yield a sunnier outlook — JLL expects spending to surge nearly 22% — providing Brommers a way of hopefulness.
“One thing that has been resilient through the years is that folks will, in truth, help their kids and put them first, so I believe we’re optimistic about this back-to-school season,” the exec said.
Other elements of the back-to-school push include pop-ups at school football games to tap into Gen Z’s sports fixation. American Eagle’s partnership with Lawrence represents the primary time the brand has had an NFL star fronting one in all its campaigns.
Emotional, not only rational
To engage Gen Z’s appreciation for self-expression and authenticity — a tactic adopted by other marketers this season — American Eagle has teamed with Life on Film and over 200 people, including actors AnnaSophia Robb, Chris Briney and Jonathan Daviss, to capture disposable camera footage showcasing how they live their lives. The footage shall be edited right into a video montage that shall be shared across each the talent and the brand’s social media channels, representing a more candid type of content than the brand normally puts forward in its back-to-school marketing , Brommers explained.
“I believe that’s why I’m so excited by this campaign and the way it differs from things we’ve done up to now,” Brommers said. “If you fast forward 30 days, in case you fast forward 60 days, I’m unsure where we shall be with this campaign because we actually need our customers to explore what ‘Live Your Life’ means to them, and we’re going to follow them where they assist take this campaign.”
Additional guerrilla-style marketing, like custom videos projected on American Eagle stores, invites customers to “be an element of the campaign,” though full details are yet to be revealed. Three-dimensional billboards in markets like New York will complement a slate of out of doors activations which might be intended to blow last yr’s back-to-school efforts — described on the time because the brand’s largest outdoor push because the pandemic — out of the water.
“We’ve got some really crazy progressive things coming up within the outdoor space,” Brommers said. “I believe we’re within the entertainment business as much as we’re within the retail business, so we should always be difficult ourselves to be as entertaining as possible.”
The array of channels American Eagle is activating symbolizes the various interests of Gen Z, Brommers explained, while the nods to self-expression and inclusion are supposed to strengthen its reference to consumers on an emotional level. That focus has helped the retailer stay in business for nearly five many years.
“We have the most effective rattling jeans on the market and all of the market share data would showcase that, but I don’t think you’ll be able to be competing at the extent we’re competing at just on the rational,” Brommers said. “I believe you really do should compete on the emotional as well.”
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