American Eagle’s CMO discusses its marketing playbook ‘amid an uncertain time in retail’

“Gen Z moves with speed, and we’ve tried to be in front of our competitors in testing and trying new places [to connect with them],” Brommers said.

Like other brands looking to resonate with young shoppers, American Eagle has poured more resources into experiential retail in the last couple of years. In April 2024, it held a denim-themed café in Austin, Texas, while in September 2023, it hosted a New York City pop-up called OMJeans that involved installing dozens of jeans-wearing mannequins along the High Line. Both events highlighted the brand’s largest category, denim, which grew in the mid-single digits last quarter. Pop-ups like these allow American Eagle to interact with its fans while also fitting the “get-out-and-do-it” message of its recent brand campaign, “Live Your Life.”

Still, like other retailers, American Eagle is operating in a challenging economic environment that makes it difficult for some to, well, live their lives. Consumers today are worried about tariffs and the price of goods, and companies from Kohl’s to Zara owner Inditex have seen slowdowns. On Wednesday, American Eagle reported fourth-quarter comparable sales growth of 3% while also warning of “less robust demand” at the beginning of 2025.

“While we anticipate improvement as the spring season gets underway, we are also taking proactive steps to strengthen the top-line, manage inventory and reduce expenses,” American Eagle CEO Jay Schottenstein said in a statement.

Brommers, who joined American Eagle in 2020 after stints at Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein, spoke with Modern Retail about how the brand is updating its marketing playbook to better woo Gen Z at a tricky time for the retail industry. Below are excerpts from the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

What about experiential retail interests American Eagle?
“We’re in an uncertain time in retail, but in my long retail marketing career, I actually think this is the time for brands to lean into their communities. For us, that means leaning into physical activations. We have the second-largest physical store fleet in America. We have a robust and successful and growing e-commerce platform, but there’s nothing like … being out there with people and immersing our community inside of our brand.”

What have you found works — and doesn’t work — with experiential retail?
“It has to feel special and unique, and sometimes, it has to feel localized. … A copy-and-paste, drop-it-in [approach] has not been as successful for us. We want to make sure that we’re in the right part of town for us, in the right environment for us.

It’s strategic that we’re down in Nashville. It’s strategic that we were in Austin. The South continues to be the biggest growth area for our company. Obviously, [that is] driven by the continued U.S. population migration to the South. But because this Western wear trend and sensibility is so popular in the South, we’ve actually outperformed in the South compared to the rest of the country. So, we’re in Nashville with purpose. We’re planting our flag in another key Southern city to make sure we build out that emotional connection with our large and growing Southern population.

A sense of urgency also works well [for experiential retail]. It helps to pop in and pop out, because that builds excitement and gets people focused on attending in a short timeframe. … It’s also about building out content that feels unique in the feed. In this uncertain retail environment, we have to continue to challenge ourselves to have content that reinforces our leadership in denim but also our leadership in youth culture. When we do things like this Denim Deli, that helps us reinforce that.”

On Wednesday, American Eagle CEO Jay Schottenstein said the first quarter was off to “a slower start than expected.” On the marketing side, what are you doing to bring back growth?
“Having Jay as our leader gives us the privilege of taking the long view. There are ups and downs in any environment, but American Eagle has been around since 1977. Obviously, we have a fiduciary responsibility to be effective and efficient in those challenging times. But we do want to zoom out a little bit and say, ‘Why are we Gen Z’s No. 1 retailer? Why are we the No. 1-selling jeans brand for women of all ages in the U.S.?’ That’s because we will continue to invest in marketing. We will continue to invest in our stores. We will continue to invest in our product.

The one thing that I do know for sure — because we have our own Gen-Z panel of about 2,000 people ages 15-25, and we ask them all sorts of questions — is that value and quality are going to be key in the coming months. Value doesn’t necessarily mean just price point. Value means the quality of the product you get at the price point you pay. We want to make sure we continue to be top of mind and reiterate why we’re so strong in a category like jeans and other things, as well.

Our CFO said it on our earnings call: Marketing will continue to be an area of investment, while we continue to be as responsible as possible in this environment. My team’s marching orders are to continue to develop unique and emotional experiences where we can connect with our Gen Z audience, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

What marketing channels are you looking to use more? Are there certain platforms you’re excited about?
“Our best-performing platforms are the platforms that Gen Z is on. TikTok and Snapchat are No. 1 and No. 2. But there are two platforms we’re excited about, … and one is Pinterest. Performance is really off the charts. … I’m confident to say that [Pinterest] will be, on a percentage basis, one of our largest [ad] increases, and they deserve it. The Pinterest team has done a very nice job of listening to retailers like American Eagle about what we need on that platform to drive consideration and conversion. They have a lot of new advertising products that have worked well, and I have to give them full credit.

We also like to challenge ourselves on new areas of innovation. One place where we have recently done that is Bluesky. … We were the first retail brand, to my knowledge, to be on Bluesky. We have found, on Bluesky, that people are super passionate about jeans, so that’s maybe an angle we’ll continue to explore.

One thing we’ve learned is that there’s not a one-size-fits-all content strategy across the platforms we’re active on. We are learning to test a few things out and see where the community is excited to take it.”