Digital & Dirt
01:54:00 · David Sable, Ian Dallimore
[01:54:00] S9: The States. [01:54:01] S0: In in the most, and again, I I love fashion denim. Sidebar, I used to invest in a Japanese denim company years ago, so I love denim, but nothing's more American than denim itself. And and I love that in that product itself. You guys have brought American Eagle back to the forefront of, you know, maybe it wasn't thought of as a certain caliber and it was so quickly brought up. So with that question, we live in a generation that you're advertising towards that can smell a marketing ad like immediately. How do you guys and what does it take to make sure that authenticity lives there and it doesn't kind of feel forced?
01:54:01 · Ian Dallimore, Craig Brommers
[01:54:01] S0: In in the most, and again, I I love fashion denim. Sidebar, I used to invest in a Japanese denim company years ago, so I love denim, but nothing's more American than denim itself. And and I love that in that product itself. You guys have brought American Eagle back to the forefront of, you know, maybe it wasn't thought of as a certain caliber and it was so quickly brought up. So with that question, we live in a generation that you're advertising towards that can smell a marketing ad like immediately. How do you guys and what does it take to make sure that authenticity lives there and it doesn't kind of feel forced? [01:54:37] S7: I think it's a balancing act. What we talk about internally is we have a tops down, bottoms up strategy. A tops down strategy is to identify people that are not just participating in culture, but are literally determining culture. And then how do you partner with them in an authentic way? Sid, Ella, Lamine, great examples of those. But the bottoms up is this identification that it's people inside of individual communities or individual subcultures that are helping to find trend for certain people. And when you think about American Eagle, sometimes we can be thought of about as a big corporate American brand. But the reality is we kind of try to twist it upside down and say, we are 900 local stores serving 900 local communities with a staff that is very embedded in that local community? And how do we bring that to life in a very authentic way? And so I think we've done a nice job of balancing both of those strategies.
01:54:37 · Craig Brommers, Ian Dallimore
[01:54:37] S7: I think it's a balancing act. What we talk about internally is we have a tops down, bottoms up strategy. A tops down strategy is to identify people that are not just participating in culture, but are literally determining culture. And then how do you partner with them in an authentic way? Sid, Ella, Lamine, great examples of those. But the bottoms up is this identification that it's people inside of individual communities or individual subcultures that are helping to find trend for certain people. And when you think about American Eagle, sometimes we can be thought of about as a big corporate American brand. But the reality is we kind of try to twist it upside down and say, we are 900 local stores serving 900 local communities with a staff that is very embedded in that local community? And how do we bring that to life in a very authentic way? And so I think we've done a nice job of balancing both of those strategies. [01:55:37] S0: Yeah. Side note, I forgot to even mention this. My wife, before she opened her high end boutique years later, she was a manager at the local American Eagle store. And I just remember that moment, this is this is pretty cool. That's awesome. So last few questions. Oftentimes data is overthought. It's overthinked, but it feels like sometimes you guys just kind of make the decision that just says, like, we just need to go for this idea.
01:55:37 · Ian Dallimore, Craig Brommers, Doug Zarkin
[01:55:37] S0: Yeah. Side note, I forgot to even mention this. My wife, before she opened her high end boutique years later, she was a manager at the local American Eagle store. And I just remember that moment, this is this is pretty cool. That's awesome. So last few questions. Oftentimes data is overthought. It's overthinked, but it feels like sometimes you guys just kind of make the decision that just says, like, we just need to go for this idea. [01:55:59] S7: Yeah. I always try to tell myself and my team, data informed, but not necessarily data led. And it is about the art and science. And I think that you wouldn't have necessarily created the phenomenon of Sydney's Sweeney Has Great Genes if it was just about data. You wouldn't have identified Ella Langley and taken a little bit of a bet on where country music is going if you just relied on data. So I would say to our listeners here today is be informed as much by heart and by gut as data. And obviously, there's moments to fact check yourself and in moments that we've lived through recently to validate that you actually are on the right path. But I think that the hard thing about if you only look at data, so many other people are looking at the same data. Sure. You're not [01:56:47] S10: going to stand out in a unique and differentiated way.
01:56:47 · Doug Zarkin, Ian Dallimore, David Sable, Raj Lala, Craig Brommers, Jim Norton
[01:56:47] S10: going to stand out in a unique and differentiated way. [01:56:49] S0: Yeah, the exact same that David ended the podcast where he talked about how AI and creativity can create complacency of things. Yeah. That's right. Absolutely. That's huge. Well, look, my friend, this was a pleasure. I'm blown about... Blown away by the work that you've done, and I know you got more to come. So I'm excited to see where where you continue to guide American Eagle. So... [01:57:06] S9: Thank you [01:57:06] S8: very much. [01:57:07] S7: Stay tuned. The thing that we try to tell ourselves inside now is the whole world [01:57:10] S9: is on the edge of their seat [01:57:11] S0: to [01:57:11] S6: see We we will try to do [01:57:14] S7: got to keep on talking to ourselves and that will be [01:57:16] S6: the game going forward. [01:57:17] S0: What an exciting job. [01:57:19] S10: Thanks, dude. Appreciate it. [01:57:20] S0: Thanks. Appreciate Thanks for listening to this episode of Digital & Dirt. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Follow us on social media for the latest updates, and stay tuned for our next episode.