“I like the idea of it really feeling like a community—with the scale, you’re really going to see how different people express themselves in fashion and the versatility of our clothing,” she said. “From more of a KPI perspective, I see an opportunity as this being an acquisition tool.”
American Eagle also works with big affiliate marketing platforms ShopMy and LTK, where creators earn money from posting content. American Eagle chose to build the AE Creator Community internally to create its own connection with influencers, Schapiro said. Owning the platform also allows American Eagle to obtain the rights to creators’ content for its own marketing.
“On certain platforms, you see that creator-led content performs much higher than a brand-led content,” Schapiro said. “It’s critical for us to start thinking about content as commerce.”
American Eagle’s marketing has been in the spotlight over the past six months after launching a campaign last summer with Sydney Sweeney that initially received backlash after some accused it of promoting eugenics and overt sexuality.
Shortly afterward, American Eagle launched a campaign with NFL star Travis Kelce, and recently rolled out a campaign starring country music artist Ella Langley. Parent company American Eagle Outfitters reported $1.4 billion in third-quarter earnings, with sub-brand Aerie driving about 33% of revenue.
