CMO Craig Brommers details the retailer’s expansive marketing for the crucial season, from Lamine Yamal's World Cup glow to in-store denim drops and college sorority partnerships.
Alpha Score of 51 reflects moderate overall profile with poor momentum, strong value, moderate quality. Based on 3 of 4 signals — score is capped at 90 until remaining data ingests.
American Eagle Outfitters rolled out its back-to-school campaign Wednesday, betting that a surging mall-footfall trend and the glow of soccer star Lamine Yamal's World Cup win will help it break through a season of flat spending.
Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers detailed the effort, which spans social media, experiential activations and a 30-second ad running on YouTube and paid social. The marketing leans heavily on three pillars: the mall, campus life and sports. Brommers called the Yamal partnership "the most exciting talent partnership in our future."
Yamal, the 19-year-old Spanish forward who signed a five-year global ambassador deal with American Eagle in January, helped his national team win the World Cup gold on Sunday. The brand quickly pivoted, temporarily renaming itself "Lamine's Eagles" on Instagram and declaring its page "a Lamine Yamal fan account." CGI-enhanced social ads with soccer balls now complement Times Square billboards that ran earlier.
"This American Eagle marketing team is working around the clock to make sure that we are amplifying Lamine into this back-to-school season," Brommers told Marketing Dive, a sister publication. "The team is not done coming up with some new tricks and surprises as we build into a product collaboration launch closer to the Labor Day weekend."
American Eagle has a track record of finding the right celebrity partners at the right time. The brand last year teamed with actor Sydney Sweeney for a campaign that, while controversial, drew new customers and briefly reversed a negative sales trend. In February it launched a campaign with country singer Ella Langley, whose song "Choosin' Texas" just notched a 14th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both Sweeney and Langley will appear in the back-to-school effort.
"I never feel like talent should define a brand, the right talent can certainly amplify a brand," Brommers said.
Alongside the celebrity push, American Eagle is leaning into the physical store experience. Gen Z foot traffic at malls rose 57% year over year, according to PwC data cited by the brand. The return to pre-pandemic mall traffic levels echoes a similar move by competitor Aéropostale.
"We are back to basically pre-pandemic mall traffic, and that mall traffic is being driven by young people that want to be back in real life, making real connections with real people," Brommers said. "We will have more in-mall activations this season than at any time of my CMO tenure over the last five years."
In-store events include discount days, store-exclusive denim drops and a "jeans for life" giveaway during the first week of August. Customers who try on jeans in store and scan a QR code will be entered. The brand is also pushing its creator community to visit stores for content.
To bridge the physical-digital divide, American Eagle will launch a social-first, influencer-led series called "Mall Diaries" that mimics the spontaneity of mall trips with a dose of Y2K nostalgia.
Beyond the mall, the brand in August will target college campuses, focusing on sorority chapters at the University of Alabama, Arizona State University, the University of Florida and Ohio State University. The influencer-led partnerships will include product displays, giveaways and room makeover content, tapping into #RushTok, the social trend around sorority recruitment.
"RushTok is not just about the young women that are going through sorority recruitment. It really is about people watching – almost in real time – the outfits, the drama and the excitement of sorority recruitment," Brommers said.
All of this comes as Deloitte forecasts flat back-to-school spending. Planned spending is expected to peak in late July and early August, returning to pre-pandemic patterns.
"It's a long back-to-school season now. It's not just the first two or three weeks and the shopping is done. Kids go back to campus, they look around at what everyone's wearing, and then they go back to the mall to buy some more stuff, and then the weather changes," Brommers said. "We're really set up to take advantage of a 10-week sprint of back-to-school this year."
Drafted by a large language model from the source reporting linked above, then screened by automated publishing checks. It is not read by a journalist before publication. Some articles cite our Alpha Score. Verify prices and figures against the original source. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.