Marketing
American eagle has many different marketing strategies and tactics that help convey what the company stands for and helps it grow every day. By having a logo and mission statement, it really impact customers and makes many want to come back. The eagle representing the company conveys the powers and messages of the spirits. As eagles are very strong birds and do not have many enemies, it make this logo a good representation of American Eagle. Having such a strong mission statement can be very important as a platform for American Eagle. As it is all about valuing human rights and treating everyone equally and with respect that is key to building a good workplace. American Eagle wants to make sure the working environments for everyone involved are in safe and in healthy conditions. This makes customers more comfortable and makes them want to trust the company and continue shopping with them.
The Chief Marketing Officer of American Eagle is Kyle Andrew. As the CMO she is responsible for the activities within the organization that deal with creating, communicating, and basically delivering offers that have values for customers, clients and business partners. (Gough 2016) Kyle’s primary mission is to increase sales, and by doing so she must develop good marketing strategies that truly promote the American Eagle brand. She also must keep an eye on competitors and always strive to stay above them in sales. By looking at others marketing strategies and interest rates, she can really pinpoint the best ways to help American Eagle continue to grow.
American Eagles marketing strategy is important in order to grow as a company and be successful in the most efficient way. They are trying to avoid heavily discounting clothes since that is a common trend that ends up hurting competitors like Abercrombie & Fitch and Aeropostale. (Schlossberg, 2015) When companies add large discounts to clothing then consumers get so used to it, that they never want to pay full price again. American Eagles new marketing strategy is working on getting out of this trend and focusing on high-quality products like their jeans. With this new strategy it has been noticed in the Business Insider article, “American Eagle is Defying the Odds Thanks to a Brilliant New Strategy”, that American Eagle is trying to replicate their competitor, Zara’s, strategy. This strategy is stocking very little and then updating the companies collections frequently. Most companies update once a season, but American Eagle and Zara restock with new designs twice a week. This helps American Eagle avoid profit losses and also lets the retailer stay updated, and pick up its pace reacting to trends. (Schlossberg, 2015).
The marketing mix includes the product which is the target audience, and what exactly American Eagle Outfitters make. They sell sweaters, shirts, leggings, jeans, swimwear, underwear, bras, and accessories like shoes, jewelry, and bags for girls and boys ages 15 to 25. The price is where it falls compared to competitors and how cheap or expensive they want their products to be for consumers. According to Forbes, in 2012 the average estimate for American Eagle stood at $25 which was about 25% premium on average market price for the similar product. The place part of the marketing mix is that, AEO has over 1,050 retail stores located in shopping malls all over the US, Canada, Mexico, China, and Hong Kong. And in the US alone, there are more than 800 American Eagle stores. (Zigu) Through promotion there are multiple ways AEO has marketed an helped the company grow. By promoting AEO on all forms of social media, TV commercials, use of real life stories and models, it helps AEO become more well known and liked by the public/consumers. The company also has a rewards system, coupons for members, and an American Eagle credit card that helps with promotion.
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets or customers and is one of the main factors used in maintaining competitiveness over competitors. Two important Think With Google marketing tools that American Eagle can use to identify and analyze the market need, market size, and competition include “User Experience and Design” and “Omnichannel”. User Experience and Design is a helpful tool that can be used to help create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to customers. By having google accessible and easy to use to the public, it better helps them utilize and access American Eagle online. It helps potential customers answer any questions they may have about American Eagle and their products which then increases sales for American Eagle. By utilizing user experience and design, it can help AEO brand their product and design advertisement and products that better attract consumers. Another tool used can be Omnichannel, which is a very easy way for consumers to properly view American Eagle and its websites. Omnichannel makes it extremely easy for people to view AEOs website and their products on different channels or mediums, like phones, computers, etc. This makes it more likely for customers to buy from American Eagle and continue being loyal customers on any device they want. Therefore, the outcomes from customers buying or using the different channels to access AEO, makes it easier for the companies market research and figuring out what exactly is working for AEO to become more successful and what is not. All in all, Think With Google is a very useful tool that has many aspects accessible to the company to better understand their customers and have customers better understand them. It can help increase sales, and keep track of their interest data which is very important in order to continue to grow and be popular.
Google Trends is a great tool American Eagle can utilize to figure out the companies interest overtime. When putting American Eagle Outfitters into the google trend interest graph, the numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. So based on the amount of searches and purchases online that google tracks, the data is used to make the google trend charts. After putting AEO into the google trend I then put in competitors such as Zara, Forever 21, and Aeropostale. Shown below is the chart that popped up with the interest of all four of these companies next to each other. But seeing the trends together it shows what companies are doing well and which are lacking in searches. This then helps viewers see what stores might be selling more products and growing as a company compared to their competitors. In the first analysis chart, it looks like American Eagle and Forever 21 have very close interest rates which makes Forever 21, AEO’s largest competitor out of the three. As AEO has the second highest interest rates through last year and most of this year, it changes drastically into November of this year. AEO and Forever 21 tend to go back and forth with having the highest views on google. Then going into December, American Eagle skyrockets above the other competitors. These changes seem to have a lot to do with Black Friday and going into the holidays. Advertisement for American Eagle became more apparent and deals seems to be better than normal, so customers are more interested in the company. Therefore google trends interest rates increase for American Eagle.
Below is the second analysis of google trends that represents the interest rates of American Eagle and its competitors on a subregion breakdown. The map represents the regions in the US where American Eagle and its competitors are most commonly searched. This map helps viewers see where American Eagle is most popular and where Forever 21, Zara, and Aeropostale are popular. The darker shades indicate where the company has a higher probability of being searched. Again it shows that American Eagle is most commonly searched throughout the country and the second highest searched is Forever 21. Forever 21 seems to be searched and more popular in the southern regions and American Eagle tends to make up the rest of the country. On this point though, even when Forever 21 is the most searched in the south, American Eagle is a close second to being searched which shows its popularity. Specifically the northwest region of the US tends to be where American Eagle Outfitters is most commonly searched and will continue to have a high probability of being searched since those states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) are very dark. American Eagle is a very successful company that seems to be growing more and more throughout the country. Even when its competitors are successful, American Eagle continues to grow and become popular.
Some ways American Eagle might have designed and developed new products and services is simply through their advertisement. By noticing what clothing gets the most likes on Instagram or what videos get shared on twitter, it give the company a good idea of what to make more of and what to stop producing. Plus with reward systems and the points customers can get by purchasing so much, they sometimes have reviews that customers can do to earn more points. This is a huge way to get the feedback they need to know where to move forward as a company. When customers write what they like or don’t like about certain products they buy, then they know what to change or do to be most successful moving forward. They can also develop the service side of things by delivery, online shopping, and in store confrontation. Getting feedback from customers about the process to online shop can be helpful to the designers of the website. It gives them tips to improve on so more people will want to shop online. And by buying a certain amount it can lead to free shipping, so it really looks like the company wants to help customers out while those customers basically help the company out by buying more. Along with online shopping, when customers actually go into the store they have options to tell the checkout person who helped them that day and there are surveys they can fill out after they visit that asks them about their visit. By customers giving feedback on the surveys and to the people working, it is an automatic help to the company to work on their service to the consumers. This gives companies a better look at what specific stores are doing and how they are handling customers.
By: Marianna Touloumes
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