Shares of American Eagle Outfitters spiked 34% Thursday after the teen clothing retailer said the frenzy surrounding its Sydney Sweeney ad campaign drew new customers during its most recent quarter. <\/p>\n
American Eagle<\/a> rolled out its new new ad campaign starring 27-year-old actor<\/a> over the summer. The fall denim campaign<\/a> sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash<\/a> to \u201cwoke\u201d American politics and culture. <\/p>\n Negative reactions centered on ads that used the word \u201cgenes\u201d instead of \u201cjeans\u201d featuring the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor known for the HBO series<\/a> \u201cEuphoria\u201d and \u201cWhite Lotus.\u201d<\/p>\n But American Eagle did get noticed, executives said late Wednesday in a call after the Pittsburgh retailer posted second quarter earnings. <\/p>\n \u201cWe saw a record-breaking new customer acquisition and brand awareness cutting across age, demographics and genders,\u201d said CEO Jay Schottenstein.<\/p>\n Traffic built up throughout the second quarter and continued into August, he said. <\/p>\n The company now expects comparable-store sales to rise by low single-digit percentages in the third and fourth quarters. The company withdrew its outlook for the year this spring citing volatility from the chaotic global economic situation. But it said Wednesday that same-store sales should be flat this year with the bump. <\/p>\n American Eagle did say that its brand also benefitted from a new ad campaign featuring newly engaged NFL star<\/a> Travis Kelce. <\/p>\n American Eagle said the campaign was always about its clothing and not race when responding to criticism<\/a>. A month later retail rival The Gap<\/a> put out its own ad featuring girl group KATSEYE. That ad received some praise for its inclusivity. <\/p>\n Gap CEO Richard Dickson, speaking Thursday at a Goldman Sachs global retail conference in New York City, said its \u201cBetter in Denim\u201d campaign received 400 million total views and in three days had more views than the brand\u2019s four prior ads combined. <\/p>\n \u201cI think when the industry creates campaigns that are talked about, it generates interest in the industry, \u201d Dickson said in an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cOur current campaign, Better in Denim, is a great example of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, wrote that the frenzy around the Sweeney campaign is something of a \u201ctempest in a teacup.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile it generated strong reactions, it ultimately had no serious detrimental impact on sales,\u201d he said. \u201cIndeed, guidance for the second half points to improved momentum, supported by both the denim marketing and the ongoing Travis Kelce partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n And attention from the Sweeney campaign doesn\u2019t seem to have hurt the brand. <\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of the merits of the collaborations, making more noise is exactly what American Eagle needs to do to cut through and regain ground among consumers for whom it has slipped off the radar, Saunders explained.<\/p>\n For the second quarter, American Eagle\u2019s revenue dipped 1% to $1.28 billion. <\/p>\n Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers said Wednesday that the Sweeney ad campaign will continue.<\/p>\n \u201cSydney will be part of our team as we get into the back half of the year and we\u2019ll be introducing new elements of the campaign as we continue forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Shares of American Eagle Outfitters Inc. are up 10% this year with the latest surge. <\/p>\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n \u2014-AP Retail Writer Anne D\u2019Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shares of American Eagle Outfitters spiked 34% Thursday after the teen clothing retailer said the frenzy surrounding its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[44574,28,83874,88,83873,851,83872,9647,83875,5631,3234,83871,7105,18224,35992,4144],"class_list":["post-133011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-american-eagle-outfitters","tag-business","tag-craig-brommers","tag-entertainment","tag-flowers","tag-inc","tag-jay-schottenstein","tag-marketing-and-advertising","tag-neil-saunders","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-pennsylvania","tag-richard-dickson","tag-sydney-sweeney","tag-teens","tag-the-goldman-sachs-group","tag-travis-kelce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}