Advertainment, The American Way

American Eagle is getting pretty sly with their marketing tactics, as of late. Their newest television advertainment idea has been creating quite a buzz. Entitled “It’s a mall world,” these are 3 and 4 minute-long episodes, or vignettes, or what have you, which basically show a bunch of good looking people walking around a mall wearing all the new fashions…which just happen to be American Eagle.

Naturally, there is some heavy brand spiraling going on here too, but it is very clever brand spiraling. The video shorts refer you back to the website, www.ae.com, where you can click on the "Get the looks" page and buy the same clothes that the people in the videos wear. See, you can be just like the people on TV, neat, huh?

Is this really going to get some high school or college kid to check out the web site and buy some clothes? I would say that it will do so much more than any traditional advertising, especially traditional TV commercials. A&E is definitely on to something here. What a clever way to reach an advertising-averse group of people…make ‘em think it isn’t an ad…but, rather, a decent show to watch. It works a hell of a lot better than their competitor’s advertising, some of which depicts people in extremely bright clothes dancing around aimlessly singing about slacks or Capri pants or whatever other style is in season…cough…old navy and the gap.

And also, the videos are actually pretty clever. They mainly follow the exploits of “Dean,” a shy kid (who is awkward, and lacking in the self-confidence department) who works at a record shop, and is interested in a good-looking girl who works at, you got it, American Eagle, across the way in the mall. The videos are rather done rather well overall, they are pretty funny, and quite captivating. They even begin with a small intro. and cast list…which makes it seem as though it is an actual program on TV. Oh, and I neglected to mention the good placement by AE, or their firm, or what have you; they run during a break in MTV’s “Real World: Sydney.” Though this is probably pretty pricy placement for A&E, I think that they are likely hitting the nail right on the head in terms of reaching out to their demographic here.

You can check out the videos at www.ae.com, where they have some other nice interactive “It’s a Mall World” stuff going on too; on YouTube at This Link, or Wednesdays on MTV during the Real World, if you are in to that kind of thing.



Some of the info. on this post came from Mike Antonucci over at the Mercury Post. Check out his article on this subject Here.