American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.
Image:American Eagle Logo.JPG
Type	Public (NYSE: AEO)
Founded	1977
Headquarters	150 Thorn Hill Drive Warrendale, Pennsylvania
Key people	Jay L. Schottenstein; Chairman James V. O'Donnell; CEO Roger S. Markfield; Vice Chairman Susan P. McGalla; President & CMO
Industry	Clothing retail
Products	Apparel
Revenue	$2.3 billion USD (2005)
Employees	20,600 (2005)
Website	www.ae.com

American Eagle Outfitters is an American clothing retailer that dates back to 1904 but took its current form in 1977 and was reorganized in Pittsburgh's north suburbs. It has recently announced a move to a new urban headquarters campus in the city's historic "Steel Valley". It is now commonly referred to by the abbreviation "American Eagle" or simply "AE" rather than its full title. American Eagle sells a full collection of apparel that includes basics such as jeans, cargo pants, and graphic Ts as well as accessories, outerwear, and footwear targeting the 15 to 25-year old demographic primarily under the American Eagle Outfitters® and AE® brand names. The brand is ranked #2 in sales to its target demographic behind Old Navy, according to the NPD Group.

The majority of American Eagle Outfitters stores can be found in shopping malls, and Lifestyle centers. On January 29th, 2006, American Eagle Outfitters operated 869 stores in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.^[1] In Canada, there are 71 stores. The company also operates a website on which it offers the same clothing, often with additional sizes and styles not found in the physical stores. American Eagle offers a wide selection of clothing at moderate to expensive price. American Eagle also offers a clearence section in stores for clothes out of date for style, or just for clothes with minor flaws.

Chairman of the Board Jay L. Schottenstein (who also has interests in Retail Ventures, which owns Value City stores and DSW) and related members of the Schottenstein, Deshe, and Diamond families own 14% of American Eagle, including shares owned beneficially through SEI, Inc.

American Eagle Outfitters' designs can be described as a mix of preppy, athletic and casual, commonly referred to in the industry as "retro". It offers a full collection of products ranging from basic t-shirts, polos, wovens, cargos, corduroys, denims and shoes to more trendy and vintage-inspired graphics and logo-driven tops and distressed or hand-finished denims.

American Eagle Outfitters is often compared to the clothing companies Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister, due to their similar styles, marketing techniques, and targeted consumer demographic, as well as the department store private label brands Arizona Jean Company (JC Penney) and American Rag (Macy's).

American Eagle Outfitters brands much of their clothing with an embroidered landing eagle, similar to Abercrombie and Fitch's standing moose, Hollister Co.'s seagull, and Aeropostale's butterfly for females and bulldog for males. Additionally, American Eagle emphasizes on their date of establishment, 1977, in their marketing and design, branding the majority of their products with the date.

Unlike Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters relies less on sexualized advertisements and catalogs, and is generally viewed as more "clean cut" as a brand. Often, their advertisements instead include a teenaged boy and girls laughing with the logo "Live Your Life" underneath it.

American Eagle Outfitters is not to be confused with American Eagle Airlines, which is completely separate despite the similar name.

aerie by American Eagle

aerie was announced in February 2006 as an intimate apparel sub-brand offering bras, panties, and dormwear targeting American Eagle's core 15 to 25 year-old demographic segment. The sub-brand's name, aerie, was chosen because it means eagle's nest and it well reflects the sub-brand. The products are offered within existing American Eagle stores, intimates-only locations adjacent to AE stores, and select stand-alone aerie stores in key markets. The aerie logo is a finch, and it was intentionally designed to bear a slight resemblance to the AE Eagle.

Other brands

In addition to its namesake brand, American Eagle, the company has developed and announced plans for several new brand and concept initiatives poised to drive new growth as the American Eagle brand nears saturation in current markets.

The company's second stand-alone lifestyle concept, Martin + Osa, launched in the fall of 2006, targets men and women 25 to 40 years of age.

The company has also indicated that a third lifestyle concept is in development that analysts speculate could be aimed at Baby Boomers (Born during 1946–64 period), and may offer homewares.

In 2001, the company acquired a Canada-based retail concept called Bluenotes, which has approximately 100 stores averaging 3,300 square feet. The concept targeted a slightly younger demographic, ages 12-22, and was positioned as a denim-driven urban/suburban lifestyle brand. Due largely to poor performance, the Bluenotes business was sold to YM Inc. in 2004.

AE All-Access pass

In September of 2005, American Eagle Outfitters announced the All-Access Pass program. Customers are given a physical “All-Access Pass”, which is about the size of a credit card. Customers receiving the pass are also given two cards for their key rings and multiple stickers for MP3 players as well as Cell phones. Customers earn points when they present the card to the cashier at the store or enter the card number while checking out at AE.com. Each type of product earns a different amount of points – for example, jeans are worth 20 points. Rewards are mailed out 4 times a year. Customers can earn coupons up to 40% off.

Celebrity endorsements

Justin Timberlake, Eric West, Drew Barrymore, Ashton Kutcher, Nat Wolff, and Eva Longoria are all known to wear American Eagle Outfitters. Currently the Australian musician Ben Lee is involved with AE and has been wearing shirts proclaiming their slogan "Live Your Life" to his concerts. The All-American Rejects also did a free acoustic concert in the American Eagle store on the Third Street Promenade in July 2006 as promotion. The characters in various new episodes of CTV's Degrassi also wear the clothing. (American Eagle used this as a way to advertise their line to the teen demographic of these shows.) For example the character of Jackson on the Disney show Hannah Montana and people on the Nickelodeon show Unfabulous have sported various shirts showing the AE logo of the eagle. American Eagle also provided the wardrobe for a few seasons of the WB series Dawson's Creek. American Eagle is also the official sponsor of MTV's Spring Break, and has outfitted numerous casts of both The Real World and Road Rules. Wanda from the Canadian show Corner Gas almost always wears AE clothing and are easily identifiable on screen as such. American Eagle was also featured in an episode of NBC's The Apprentice. American Eagle has also occasionally provided the wardrobe for Uranium, a show on the satellite network Fuse.

American Eagle began sponsoring Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls on The CW Television Network with its "aerie Tuesdays" campaign. This campaign features the "aerie Girls," a group of young girls discussing the relationships of the characters on the shows in conjunction with their own troubling romantic histories. This stands to stark contrast to the intelligent women featured in the network's Tuesday-night programming. Immediately following the premiere of "aerie Tuesdays" on October 3, 2006, The CW Television Network's forum contributors had coined the term "aerheads" to describe the "aerie Girls" and mounted an effort to call American Eagle's customer service line and complain about the negative representations of women in the new campaign.

Company Growth

In January 2007, the company announced that it will accelerate the expansion of aerie by American Eagle with the opening of at least 15 stand-alone locations in 2007. Launched in September, the new intimates sub-brand, featuring a full line of undies, bras and dorm-wear, is designed to be sweetly-sexy. The brand has been met with strong customer acceptance. The company's expansion plans are based on the positive results of three aerie stand-alone test stores. If new stores continue to perform as well as the test stores, aerie could be a 350+ store chain by 2012. In the fourth quarter, American Eagle opened eight new AE stores and remodeled 20 locations In 2006, 42 new AE stores opened and 65 remodels were completed. Together with five new MARTIN + OSA stores, and three new aerie stand-alone test stores, total gross square footage increased 8% for the year. In 2007, the company plans to open 45 to 50 AE stores, at least 15 aerie stand-alone stores and approximately 12 new MARTIN + OSA stores. Additionally, approximately 45 AE store remodels are planned, which combined with new store openings will generate total 2007 square footage growth of approximately 10%.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

1. ^ Company Profile at Reuters

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