American Eagle Bets on RushTok, Sydney Sweeney, and Snapchat to Win Back-to-School

Quick Facts

American Eagle is the first specialty fashion retailer to use Snapchat’s Promoted Places format, featuring more than 800 stores on Snap Map.
The brand’s Fall ’25 campaign starring Sydney Sweeney sparked a national debate and appeared on SNL more than two months after launch.
American Eagle produces roughly 500 pieces of content per week across TikTok, Snapchat, Bluesky, and Pinterest.

American Eagle Outfitters is throwing its full marketing weight behind back-to-school season, combining a viral sorority recruitment trend, a celebrity campaign that refuses to leave the news cycle, and a first-of-its-kind Snapchat partnership to push Gen Z shoppers into stores.

CMO Craig Brommers calls back-to-school ‘the Super Bowl of denim.’ For a 47-year-old mall retailer that has positioned itself as the No. 1 jeans brand for 15-to-25-year-olds, the stakes are high. Competitors include Levi’s, Gap, and Abercrombie and Fitch.

Riding the RushTok Wave

RushTok, the TikTok trend built around sorority recruitment, has accumulated 1.4 million posts and billions of collective views. It has become a direct commercial channel for fashion and lifestyle brands. Companies including Tarte, Poppi, and Altar’d State gained visibility through unboxing videos and sponsored content tied to recruitment week.

American Eagle moved early. The brand created dedicated landing pages on ae.com for sorority recruitment dresses and sorority event outfits, meeting shoppers at the exact moment they are building recruitment wardrobes.

Snapchat Partnership Targets In-Store Traffic

American Eagle’s Snapchat deal puts more than 800 store locations on Snap Map as Promoted Places. The brand is the first specialty fashion retailer to use this format. Snap Map reaches 400 million users monthly, and Snap reports that more than 95% of its users plan to shop in-store for back-to-school this year.

Later this summer, American Eagle will launch a ‘Jeans Try-on Haul’ AR Lens on Snapchat. The lens is part of the broader Fall ’25 campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.

The Sydney Sweeney Campaign

American Eagle’s campaign, titled ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,’ plays on the words ‘jeans’ and ‘genes.’ The wordplay drew immediate backlash across social media, with some viewers reading the phrasing as implying genetic superiority. The controversy landed the campaign on Saturday Night Live more than two months after launch.

Brommers acknowledged the sustained attention. ‘Just this last Saturday night, this was still in the news. This was on SNL,’ he said.

The campaign includes 3D billboards, a Snapchat lens where Sweeney interacts with users, and AI-enabled try-on technology. As part of the rollout, the brand released ‘The Sydney Jean,’ a limited-edition style with a butterfly motif tied to domestic violence awareness. American Eagle donates 100% of the purchase price to Crisis Text Line.

Jennifer Foyle, President and Executive Creative Director for AE and Aerie, framed the campaign around the brand’s core product. ‘This fall season, American Eagle is celebrating what makes our brand iconic: trendsetting denim that leads, never follows,’ she said.

Experiential Retail Stays in the Mix

Physical activations remain central to the strategy. In March, American Eagle hosted a Denim Deli pop-up in Nashville with free sandwiches, customizable denim totes, and an appearance by ‘Outer Banks’ actor Chase Stokes. In April 2024, it ran a denim-themed cafe in Austin. In September 2023, it installed dozens of jeans-wearing mannequins along New York City’s High Line.

The brand also maintains an aggressive content output across platforms. Beyond TikTok and Snapchat, American Eagle is increasing ad spending on Bluesky and Pinterest. ‘Gen Z moves with speed, and we’ve tried to be in front of our competitors in testing and trying new places,’ Brommers said.

With the campaign still generating press coverage and RushTok showing no sign of slowing, American Eagle is positioned to measure whether cultural noise converts to denim sales when students return to campus this fall.