Link to Final Presentation:
Okay, so for those of you who have not heard of the brand
AERIE, it is American Eagle’s Lingerie brand. They target teenagers and young
women. As a lingerie brand, their biggest competitor would be Victoria’s
Secret. Victoria’s Secret is much more publicized than Aerie, from their VS
Angels and to their widely viewed Fashion show. Aerie did something to
differentiate itself from VS.
The talk around body positivity has increased substantially
in the past couple of years. As young girls we see how the media portrays this “ideal
body” which is front and center at the VS fashion show. This “ideal body” is unattainable.
Photoshop has ruled the advertising market. Models are constantly slathered in
makeup and are then photoshopped to get this “ideal standard of beauty.”
Because of all of these false portrayals of body image in
the media: girls as young as 5 years old are becoming concerned with their body
image. We see it everywhere, even in Disney Princess movies.
We are in 2017 and this ideal body type does not exist, nor
has it existed. In 2014 Aerie launched its Aerie Real campaign and it has come
to be part of their brand. This campaign meant they were no longer going to retouch
images of their models, and so they were going to let their “real” beauty
shine.
Since the initial release of the campaign sales have boomed.
In 2015 sales increased by 20% and in the first quarter of 2016, sales had
already increased by 32% (Mosbergen). Okay
great so the campaign seemed to be working monetarily wise for the brand, but
was it working for what they stood for?
What began as a campaign has become part of their brand. They now have
a blog that you can read posts from their models, some are giving advice, their
outfit choices, interviews and much more. I think this blog is a great idea.
However, I was not even aware it existed until now. I also noticed there are 0
comments on their posts, and 0 posts from the groundswell. I will talk more
about that later.
Now this what used
to be a campaign has had campaigns of their own. Aerie Real: Share Your Spark
included a wide variety of young women from Aerie designers to bloggers to
social media fans, 40 of them came together share this message of empowerment
and loving the skin you’re in. This sounds great! A great little video.
Awesome. But where did they go?
Another campaign was
the Aerie Real: Real Women Project aims to challenge the “standard” definition
of beauty. Also great!
But I went to look
at their website. Where you actually buy the bras and clothes, were your
typical thin models. There were some differences in ethnicity, however they
were all thin. They very much market their curvier model Iskra Lawrence, but I
was only able to find her in the swim section. This is great don’t get me
wrong. Technically, in our swimwear we are the most vulnerable, because our
bras are generally seen just by us. But women should feel confident no matter
what they are in. When they do not have curvier models actually selling the
products, they are contradicting themselves.
One section they do
have curvier models is in the swimwear. They are doing a campaign of trying to
promote young women to feel happy in their untouched swimsuit photos. And for
every photo that is tagged with #AerieREAL they will donate $1 to a non-profit
that supports those affected with eating disorders. This is a great campaign.
They are energizing the groundswell to embrace what the company stands for and
it’s for a good cause. The best part is that you don’t even have to be wearing
their swimwear for them to donate the money, so here they are truly promoting the
message of positive body image.
The groundswell
LOVED this!
Li and Bernoff
provided so many insights that I used throughout my analysis of this case
study. But I want to look more in depth to some of the concepts they spoke
about.
We learned that
first and foremost you need to listen to the groundswell. Around the time Aerie
Real first began, positive body image was a widely discussed topic especially
among women and young women. Aerie listened to the groundswell. As far as
talking with… I looked on their social media pages and that does not seem to be
a priority. They engaged the groundswell with the tagging of “#AerieREAL” but
it kind of stops there. Sure they are donating the money, but what about
interacting with groundswell. Like I mentioned, they are not really talking
with the groundswell. So these women are taking pictures and tagging it, and $1
is being donated. But what if Aerie sent them a thank you comment for
participating, they could even sweeten it with a % off code. The women were not
posting to get the recognition (they were probably posting because they
believed in the mission and wanted to help raise the money to donate), but it
would be nice to get at least an acknowledgment from Aerie.
This loops back to
the beginning of the book when Li and Bernoff tell us that we need to “concentrate
on the relationships” (p. 18). Aerie has done a great job of revolutionizing its
brand, but they aren’t creating a community. They have the tagline of being an “Aerie
girl” which I will talk a little more about later on, but now use that and
really foster a community. Use the blog to foster that community.
Li and Bernoff talk
about using the Social Technographic Profile to create a strategy to involve
the groundswell (build that relationship). From the Aerie Real: Share Your
Spark campaign, Aerie is aware of the fact that it has bloggers posting about
them, and social media fans. So they have Creators, Joiners, and probably have
Spectators too. They have this great blog, so why not get those Creators to
post there for the Joiners and Spectators to see. Then they are connecting with
the groundswell, engaging the groundswell, energizing the groundswell and consequently
letting the groundswell do the work for them. If a blogger (or any Aerie fan) is
featured on Aerie’s blog, you can guess that that person is going to share
where they are published on their own social media channels. Not only that, but
it could create that community that we talked about.
Li and Bernoff gave
us the example of Unilever and how Dove took a risk going against the industry
norm. Dove did this before Aerie, but they are different industries. Aerie too,
took risks when they broke away from the norm of stick thin models and perfect
photoshopped images.
I broke up my
thoughts of Aerie Real into a SWOT analysis.
Strengths:
- Understood target audience and their
struggle with body image because of media
- Not the first to market real beauty
instead of ideal, but first to forgo photoshop
- The first in the market
Weaknesses
- The models in the initial release,
although they were not photoshopped, they still portrayed “ideal beauty
standards” - since then has improved substantially
However, like I mentioned they aren’t portrayed on their website as much
as they should be
- Criticized for their products not going
up large enough, but go up to what they say is about a size 18
- Referring to Aerie users as Aerie girls,
empower women too
I’m not sure
if y’all have seen the video (if not you should watch it “Girl vs Women- Why language
matters” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHH3lhYwqcY).
But there could be problems with Aerie referring to these young women as girls…
Opportunity:
- Do a good job of engaging groundswell,
what about posting the groundswell’s pictures on their own site
- Take what they have been doing and
expand to all of their products- (so on their website, have models of
different shapes wearing the bras and clothes) let young women feel
empowered no matter what they are wearing
- Advertise their blog, invite Aerie
customers to send in posts
Like I mentioned before, I did not even know this blog existed until now.
Use this create a community. Invite Creators to blog themselves, give the
joiners and spectators content to read, allow the conversationalists to connect
with each other. The blog is a great idea; they just need to use it properly.
Threats:
- Competitors like Victoria’s Secret
tapping into this, and then they are no longer distinct
- Not congruent throughout their products,
only swimwear do you see a model who may not meet the “ideal beauty
standards”.
Final Thoughts:
Aerie Real has done
well as we saw from the increases in sales, but it needs to reenergize the
brand. More and more companies are tapping into this real beauty approach, and
they need to keep themselves separate. They can do this by really embracing the
Aerie Real community. They are forming one with their campaigns, but they leave
it at that. They need to utilize the tools they already have (social media
pages and the blog) to connect with the groundswell, build those relationships,
and then the community will follow.
