American Eagle Outtters Consumer Relations!

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Public Relations Case Study: Consumer Relations and PR Ethics for American Eagle Outfitters Inc. Jenna Noble Katrina J. Quinn, Ph.D.

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Abstract American Eagle Outfitters is a clothing and accessory retailer that targets 15-25 year old males and females. American Eagle Outfitters is dedicated to creating a culture of individuality amongst its employees and its consumers. American Eagle Outfitters is also dedicated to being innovators in the fashion and retail industry by conducting consumer-focused campaigns, and by providing its consumers with the best on-trend clothing at affordable prices. American Eagle Outfitters revolves around its motto, Live Your Life. This study examines the consumer relations tactics and communication ethics of American Eagle Outfitters. It uses standard public relations theories and models for evaluating the effectiveness of AEOs consumer relations. This study makes suggestions for AEOs media relation as well as the Project Live Your Life Campaign to make it even more successful than it already is. Also included is a comparison of American Eagle Outfitters consumer relations and its competitors, Abercrombie & Fitch. The ethics of American Eagle Outfitters are also evaluated using the Public Relations Society of Americas Code of Ethics. The evaluation focuses on American Eagle Outfitters areas of advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty and fairness.

American Eagle Outtters Consumer Relations!

Organizational Background American Eagle Outfitters Inc. was first established in 1977 in Novi, Michigan. It is a name-brand, American clothing and accessories retailer that targets 15-25 year old males and females. The growing chain, headquartered out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania operates more than 1,000 stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada (AE Better World.) It also has corporate offices in New York City and Hong Kong. AEO currently employs more than 30,000 employees in positions ranging from factory workers, sales associates and store managers to corporate employees (AE Better World.) The corporation is constantly working to expand and reach more demographics. In 2006, AEO introduced its first lingerie sub-brand, Aerie, which targets 15-21 year old females. In 2008, AEO introduced its first childrens clothing line, 77Kids, targeting both male and female children, ages 2-10 years old (AE Better World.)

AEO Consumer Relations AEO is not just a clothing and accessory retailer. It is an innovator in marketing and media. AEO is a culture shared, not only by its consumers, but by its employees. Both of these areas: media and employee relations interconnect and they are the reason why AEO has such successful consumer relations. AEO uses multiple tactics within each of these areas to give its consumers the best product and shopping experience in the retail industry.

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Live Your Life, Love Your Job The key ingredient to having successful consumer relations in a corporation like AEO is to have excellent customer service within the stores. The only way to get excellent customer service is to have excellent employees. AEO encourages employees to be creative, and they create a work environment that gives employees the freedom to be themselves (The AEO Inc. Story.) My very first job was working as a sales associate at an AEO store back home. I worked there for a little over three years before I went to college, and I would have to say it was a great learning experience and overall very rewarding. During my time there, I learned that AEO strives to create strong relationships between its consumers and employees. The way AEO accomplishes that is by having laid back and inviting employees. My managers were trained very well and they trained and treated the associates well, which in turn, made us more willing to put our best foot forward to serve our customers. I remember our managers being very particular about the way we approached the shoppers. We had to make sure we greeted everyone as soon as they walked through the doors by asking an open ended question like, whats the weather like today? or what brings you in to AE today? to start conversation. Then we would lead into what promotions were going on that day. After that, we would ask them if there was anything we could help them find. If the shopper declined our help, we would give them space to shop around. This let the shopper know that we are friendly and that we are there to serve them, not just sell merchandise to them.

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When someone checked out, we would ask them for their AE Rewards card. This is AEOs rewards system, where each time a shopper purchases something, we scan their rewards card and they earn points towards monthly store discounts. The generous discounts AEO gives through the AE Rewards is a great incentive for costumers to keep returning to the stores and drive sales. Employees are also rewarded with great employee discounts and incentives. Employees get 40% off of all store merchandise regularly and when a new floor set comes in with new merchandise, they get 50% off. Employees live by the motto, live your life, love your job that AEO instills in them.

AEOs Media Tactics Along with the face-to-face communication that takes place in the stores between employees and consumers, media is one of the most used forms of two-way communication between AEO and their consumers. AEOs company website, ae.com, is a place for consumers to shop online as well as connect to AEOs blog and social media sites. On the site they are able to create an account, where they can set up their AE Rewards and do all their shopping online, while still earning discount points. At the bottom of the site AEO offers customers different categories to seek information and give feedback. Under the Customer Service category, AEO provides customers and consumers with contact information, such as an email and telephone number for direct customer service. Under the Company Info category, customers can click links which will direct them to a page with

American Eagle Outtters Consumer Relations!

AEOs story, their community relations initiatives, their careers and the press room. Under the Orders category, customers can track their online orders, review the return policy, as well as gather information about the countries AEO ships to. Under the Legal Policies category, customers and consumers can learn about the companys privacy policy. AEO also has categories for the AEO credit card and AE Rewards system. Under these categories, customers can sign up and manage their accounts all online, in one place. AEOs website is very user friendly and easy to navigate. AEOs blog is another form of controlled media. Its a great place for consumers to go to keep up to date on the current cast of AEOs Project Live Your Life campaign. They can also view blog posts about music, travel, and style that inspire AEO, as well as get to know some of AEOs employees. AEO also uses a ton of social media to stay connected with its consumers. They have a Facebook page, which currently has 9,424,978 likes, a Twitter account which has 249,419 followers, an Instagram account that has over 317,000 followers, and a Pinterest account that has 39,102 followers. They also have a smart phone app, which updates consumers on exclusive deals and style updates, as well as provides a store locator and loyalty program. I liked and followed each of these accounts and I noticed most of the feedback that AEO receives is positive. The few negative comments on the Facebook page were answered quickly by one of AEOs social media employees, and it seems like the social media coordinator really knows how to handle negative situations. They are also very good at updating each page regularly. Every day, when I check my social media, there is something new and interesting from them.

American Eagle Outtters Consumer Relations!

Project Live Your Life Campaign Since its struggle of being stuck in a sea of sameness, as Jamie Simoni, the AEO marketing manager of social media would put it, AEO is constantly striving to be innovators in the fashion and retail industry to set itself apart from its competitors. To do this, AEO rebranded itself and has made their key message, individuality, which they project through their Live Your Life campaign. Through this campaign, they want their costumers to know that they are real, they fit everyone and they welcome all (Simoni, 2013.) What better way to do this than by putting real people into their marketing. In July of 2012, Project Live Your Life 1.0 launched. For this campaign, AEO asked its consumers to submit a photo of themselves, and their basic information to be entered as a contestant to model for AEOs marketing that season. The competition was connected to the companys website, as well as to Facebook, so that consumers and fans could vote for their favorite contestants. Once the winners were picked, AEO used them in its marketing campaigns for that season (Simoni, 2013.) It was a good first step for the campaign, but it didnt give AEO and its consumers enough in-depth knowledge about the contestants. So, to better showcase the contestants personal style, talent and individuality, AEO decided to recreate the campaign in October, 2012. The goals of the campaign were to create a platform to showcase personal style, drive traffic and sales, and find a cast for the Back to School 2013 marketing campaign (Simoni, 2013.) This time they had the contestants share their individual style, their passion category, such as adventurer, techie, philanthropist, photographer, etc., and of course their favorite AEO

American Eagle Outtters Consumer Relations!

denim style to tie back into the retail aspect. They also allowed contestants to upload samples of their work, like paintings, music, and writing for voters to view (Simoni, 2013.) AEO broke down the campaign into four weekly contests. The goal each week was to get you to the top 200 by getting the most votes. Then a panel of AEO judges picked 2 males and 2 females from each category. Then, they left it to the public to vote for their single favorite male and female contestants, and the AE panel picked 8 wild cards (Simoni, 2013.) As an incentive to enter the contest, weekly finalists received a $100 AEO gift card, the top ten vote-getters got a $50 AEO gift card, and the grand prize for the winners was a $2,500 AEO gift card and a chance to be in AEOs marketing campaign. Also, throughout the campaign, AEO gave every contestant a 30% off discount and gave every voter a 20% off discount to encourage involvement (Simoni, 2013.) By doing this, AEOs sales went up over 1,000% since Live Your Life 1.0 (Simoni, 2013.) There are a number of benefits that stem from this campaign. First is the number and diversity of the contestants submissions that AEO received. The diversity of the submissions shows that AEOs merchandise is versatile and people of all shapes, sizes, interests and hobbies can wear it. It also shows that AEO is accepting of all people. Secondly, by sharing the contestants stories, AEO is able to project their new brand image to their current consumers, and use its current consumers to draw in more potential consumers. Thirdly, because it is so important for AEO to know its consumers, Project Live Your Life helped AEO learn things about their consumers that they did not know beforehand, like how loyal its consumers are, and what they want from AEO, which is to share their real-life experiences and talents and to see people just like them in AEOs advertisements.

American Eagle Outtters Consumer Relations!

Project Live Your Life is AEOs longest running campaign, and for good reason. This campaign has significantly helped AEO rebrand and set itself apart from its competitors by using real people as their image and as the main drive for their market. Celebrity Endorsement Although the Live Your Life campaign started out as just targeting consumers to get involved, AEO has expanded to include celebrities as well. This past year, they featured Shay Mitchell from the hit TV series, Pretty Little Liars in their Live Your Life campaign. At first I thought they were back tracking by using a celebrity endorser, but now after looking into it I realize that they are just showcasing all the ways different people where their clothing. Using a celebrity draws an entirely different level of attention, so I think it was a smart move on AEOs part to use celebrity endorsement.

Compare and Contrast - American Eagle Outfitters v. Abercrombie and Fitch I decided to compare AEO to Abercrombie & Fitch because they are similar in style and fashion and they target the same age range. However, they dont target the same types of people. AEO has always welcomed people of all shapes and sizes. A&F on the other hand, has not. In 2006, during an interview with Salon, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries made a slew of comments about how A&F only targets cool kids describing a certain body type and demographic. Since then A&F has apologized and is now launching an anti-bullying campaign. They will be offering college scholarships to people who have achieved academic success, while being bullied (Berman, 2013.) So far, critics are not buying A&Fs efforts because the stores still do not stock plus sized clothing and they believe A&F is a hypocrite (Berman, 2013.) My

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personal opinion is that this is not genuine and instead looks like a PR stunt. A&F should have first introduced plus sized clothing before taking on this kind of campaign. When looking through A&Fs media aspects, I noticed their site seems to have everything content wise that AEO does, except AEOs website is very vibrant and colorful and A&Fs is all grey, black and white (Abercrombie & Fitch.) Another thing that differs in the consumer relations is the atmospheres of the stores. When you walk into an AEO store it is well lit, with bright colored clothing and uses advertisements with a lot of color. On the other hand, when you walk into an A&F store, it is very dark and not as colorful. I also noticed that a lot of A&Fs advertisements fall more towards the sex sells side of marketing with topless models kissing each other, where as AEOs advertisements features how real people wear AEOs clothing in their everyday lives.

Assessment/Suggestions Overall, I think AEO does a great job of keeping its consumers happy by giving them a comfortable and welcoming place to shop. AEO employs positive individuals and I believe that vibe is translated to its consumers. AEOs media presence is on point. They update their website, blog and socials sites multiple times every day and they respond to consumer feedback, both positive and negative in a timely fashion. One suggestion I have as far as media goes, would be for AEO to utilize mass and local media more by creating a commercial or have the cast of their campaign appear on a morning news show to talk about AEOs efforts to shows its diversity.

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AEOs marketing campaigns have been very successful, and I believe that is due to the fact that consumers can relate to the people they see in the advertisements. One suggestion I would make to AEO is to include more people with diverse ethnic backgrounds, as well as include people of more shapes and sizes. I feel that their Live Your Life campaign has feature predominately white people of the same physical structure. Next time the AE panel should pick 8 wild cards that are very diverse in their ethnic backgrounds as well as size. This will really showcase how welcoming AEO is of all people, unlike their competitors. My last suggestion for AEO would be to make it easier to contact people. I was unable to get an interview with anyone from the corporate office which was my main goal. Instead, I resorted to Facebook messaging one of my old store managers to ask them about the changes that have taken place in the store since I left about four and a half years ago. I was disappointed that no one from corporate was able to answer questions for me, so I definitely think they should make more of an effort to reach out to people who have questions for them.

AEO Compliance with PRSA Code of Ethics

Advocacy - American Eagle Outfitters is shows responsible advocacy by only working with vendors and contractors who share the same commitment to ethical practices as AEO, such as protection for the rights of individuals, promotion of equal opportunity and respect for the environment.

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Honesty - American Eagle Outfitters holds itself to the highest level of honesty by taking full responsibility of their actions. They also send out important information to its employees, consumers and investors in an orderly and timely fashion through email and press releases.

Expertise - American Eagle Outfitters possesses a high level of expertise in the fashion and retail industry. They also hold high expertise in the Ares of consumer, employee, media and community relations. With this expertise, they are able to form strong and loyal, long term relationships and partnerships.

Independence - American Eagle Outfitters take sole responsibility for their actions, both positive and negative.

Loyalty - American Eagle Outfitters is loyal to their consumers, employees, investors and the surrounding community. They are dedicated to forming relationships and providing a hospitable environment for all those in relation to them.

Fairness - American Eagle Outfitters deals with its consumers, employees, competitors, peers, vendors, media and the general public fairly at all times. AEO respects each individuals right to free expression, by encouraging and promoting individuality.

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Works Cited

Abercrombie & Fitch. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://www.abercrombie.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreView? catalogId=10901&langId=-1&storeId=10051> AE Better World. American Eagle Outfitters. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. http://www.ae.com/web/corpResp/about/index.jsp American Eagle Outfitters. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. www.ae.com Berman, Jillian. "Abercrombie anti-bullying campaign met with surprise, criticism from protestors." Huffington Post Business N.p., 6 November 2013. Web. Dec. 3. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/abercrombie-anti-bullyingcampaign_n_3423081.html> The AEO Inc. Story Values. Live Your Life Love Your Job. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://www.liveyourlifeloveyourjob.com> Simoni, Jamie. American Eagle Outfitters: How to Make Your Costumers Your Marketing. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <Socialmedia.org>