Name: How Levi’s, Gap And American Eagle Are Winning Back U.S. Shoppers
Uploaded: 2025-12-06T22:45:47.000Z
Duration: 11 min 8 s
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When one of the biggest stars in music names one of her songs after your company, you know it's gonna be a game changer.

Because you know, in that moment you're just reminded what, what an incredible company and brand we are that Beyonce would name a song after us that far exceeded our expectations.

Six months later, Levi's announced a global marketing campaign with Beyonce.

And the rest will go down in retail history.

Billions of impressions and sales were up 8%.

But it's not only Levi's who's trying to boost sales by way of denim and celebrity.

A year after the Beyonce phenomenon, Gap got global girl group Cat's Eye.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and their life is better than yours.

The campaigns boasted two of the most viral ads of the summer.

In late November, the company also announced its latest partnership, Martha Stewart in Head to Toe Denim.

The company reported a record breaking Thanksgiving weekend and profit that was about 4, 14% higher year over year.

In its third quarter 2025 earnings, Jeans have generally been a consistent category for retailers.

Silhouettes change, but jeans never really go out of style.

And as Americans are back in their offices, jeans are finally having a moment again.

Between 2020 and 2025, the jeans market grew 27%.

The splashy marketing campaigns represent the length at which retailers are willing to go to compete for an already choosy consumer.

Levi Strauss and Taylor Jacob Davis created the first pair of blue jeans in 1873.

For nearly a century, the bottoms were almost exclusively worn by workers, miners, cowboys and farmers.

Now it's one of the most ubiquitous pieces pieces of clothing, and Levi's dominates the category.

We drive innovation, the fits, the styles, the trends.

While trends in fashions may come and go, denim is enduring and it has been for decades.

You have grandparents, parents, boomers, Gen X, Gen Z, Alpha.

It doesn't matter your economic or social class, it doesn't matter what your views are in terms of the political spectrum.

Since Michelle took over as Levi's CEO in January 2024, she's focused on making the brand more premium.

She's cut back on discounts, she's raised prices.

And she's also focused on a more direct selling strategy.

Instead of relying on wholesalers like Macy's and Kohl's, it has focused on driving more sales through its own website and stores.

In 2024, it it got out of footwear, it stopped its denizen business that was sold in target, and

in 2025 it offloaded its underperforming Khakis brand Dockers.

Some of those adjustments are paying off.

And its fiscal 2025 third quarter earnings.

Levi's outperformed expectations even as tariffs weighed on cost and consumer demand.

Competitor American Eagle, on the other hand, is in turnaround mode.

With most of its stores and malls where foot traffic is down, finding growth has been a challenge.

Its big bet on Sydney Sweeney, its largest celebrity campaign to date has provided a much needed boost with Gen Z shoppers.

The partnership with Kansas City Chiefs tied in Travis Kelce is aiming to attract more male customers.

The latest with Martha Stewart, launched days before Thanksgiving, has its sights on yet another generation.

While no specifics have been shared on Impact, the company said it had a record breaking Thanksgiving weekend.

I think we did have some misses in the past and I think right now we're starting to get the momentum and I think you're going to see more of that in the future.

That was in my mind the quickest turnaround for American Eagle.

By the time we got to Q2 results, they kind of deemed the challenges course corrected.

But I think it's still early to say and the success will really hinge on whether or not they can execute more broadly on those apparel categories.

In its third quarter 2025 earnings report on December 2, comparable sales were up 4% compared to 3% in the year prior, while profits were $91 million, about 14% higher than last year.

Then there's Gap, one of the most well known brands in North America.

Under the direction of CEO Richard Dickson, the former Mattel exec credited with reviving the Barbie empire, Gap is trying to reverse a 20 year sales slump and reclaim the cultural relevance that once defined it.

Beyond cat's eye, the brand has partnered with a slew of other big names.

Its third quarter results blew away expectations mainly driven by the successful girl group campaign.

As brands look to win over a new generation of shoppers who primarily discover products online, they need to find new ways to catch their attention.

Ads need to be as compelling as they are viral, but

those online clicks need to translate into real life sales.

Generation Z and Alpha are the first generations who didn't grow up shopping at a mall.

When we talk about engagement Usually we're focused on only digital engagement, but

this social media influx of excitement created not just community.

You had controversy creating community and you had controversy also driving consumer engagement.

It drove denim into a conversation that became national.

During American Eagle's third quarter, operating costs were up $35 million year over year, and

a big portion of that was spent on Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce.

When the ad first debuted, American Eagle stock popped, but

then it was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons Sydney Sweeney has for Cannes.

Critics said the double entendre of jeans and jeans promoted eugenics.

It was also compared to a controversial Calvin Klein ad from the 1980s featuring a 15 year old Brooke Shields.

Genes are fundamental in determining the characteristics of an individual, but there has been some payoff.

In the aftermath of the Sweeney and Kelce campaigns, American Eagle saw comparable sales up in the mid single digits.

Foot traffic was consistently positive across channels.

In August 2025, the company said the Sweeney campaign was the best campaign in the brand's history and it even caught the attention of President Donald Trump, leading shares to soar.

It really took off and it's still top of mind right now as we head into the holiday season.

In December 2025, investors got their first full quarter look at the impact of the Sydney Sweeney campaign on sales.

And while the company said the campaign is attracting more customers, it has not been a significant revenue driver.

Following the controversy, American Eagle apparently removed one of the ads for most of its social pages, the one where Sweeney discusses genes being passed down from parent to offspring.

That incited the most blowback, though the spot is only visible on American Eagle's Facebook page.

The company denied taking it down to cnbc, saying once content is released, it's out for the world to see.

American Eagle declined further comment on the Sweeney controversy.

About a week after the ads came out, it posted a statement on its Instagram page saying the campaign is and always was about the jeans.

Meanwhile, Gap's team up with global girl group Cat's Eye delivered a record breaking response for the brand.

During the quarter the campaign came out, comparable sales rose by 7%, more than double what analysts had been expecting.

Levi's year long partnership with Beyonce generated 4.3 billion press impressions with more than $65 million in media value alone as of April 2025.

Levi says the campaign helped drive sales in its women's business, which is trying to grow to 50% of overall revenue.

Your SGA expenses were about 200 million higher by the end of the year.

Why make a Bet on millions of dollars for a big name like Beyonce.

Well, we haven't disclosed what we invested in the partnership, but

what I can tell you is our partnership has exceeded expectations both in terms of what it has done to be part of the equation to drive our top line sales.

You know, year to date, our sales are up in the high single digits and our profit margins are expanding.

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How Levi’s, Gap And American Eagle Are Winning Back U.S. Shoppers

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