Commerce Outsights
November 3, 2025
American Eagle’s CMO would do it all over again, and what we can learn from Mytheresa about customer loyalty.
Hello! This is the latest edition of Commerce Outsights, Nebulab’s strongly worded roundup of the most interesting news in commerce.
You may have noticed this newsletter has been on hiatus for the last two months. We'd love to say this was planned, but the reality is that we were absolutely swamped with client work, the planning of what turned out to be a FABULOUS event, and various other things. All good problems to have, but we were regrettably forced to take a break from our favorite activity: having opinions about stuff and letting people know about those opinions.
With all of that behind us, we can get back to our usual schedule. But first...
As you know, the original idea behind this newsletter was that, in a world of AI slop and vibe marketing, there might still be one or two lunatics who appreciate a tighter, deeper, and more opinionated take on the things that truly matter.
As we took some time to “recharge” (powerful air quotes here) in September and October, we realized that, in an effort to keep up with our editorial pace and please an ever-larger crowd, we had begun to stray from those principles. In fact, you may have noticed that the last few issues of Commerce Outsights were a bit vaguer and a bit blander than usual.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, NO MORE OF THAT. I’m pleased to inform you that we’re officially doubling down on the weirdness.
Moving forward, every bi-weekly issue of Commerce Outsights will feature at least one and at most three stories, with deeper and more nuanced commentary from our team. There will be no distinction between evergreen pieces and goings-on: the only discriminating factor is that we're only going to select stories that we feel strongly about, one way or another.
We may also start using this newsletter to tell you about our initiatives, broader trends we're noticing in the market, and anything else that our hearts desire, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
As always, it’s all an experiment, so we’ll see how it goes and take it from there. If you have any feedback about the new format, we’d love for you to hit reply and let us know. Just mind your manners, alright?
— Alessandro
Photo credit: American Eagle
American Eagle’s CMO regrets nothing
#Apparel #Marketing #Celebrities 43 mins
In the age of micro-targeting and “marketing at the speed of culture” (whatever that means), there is something to be said for brands that go back to the very purpose of marketing—that is, to build mental availability through distinctive, memorable campaigns that find their way into the hearts and minds of the broadest possible audience.
And whatever you may think of American Eagle’s infamous Sydney Sweeney campaign (we’re going to go on record here and say we liked it), there’s little denying that CMO Craig Brommers has managed to do precisely that.
While the campaign itself was well designed and flawlessly executed, the real surprise was how Brommers and the rest of AE’s leadership team stayed the course rather than going into crisis management mode once the inevitable criticism arrived (inevitable because anything that catches people’s attention is, by definition, going to be divisive).
While the jury is still out there on what Sydney has really done for American Eagle, the initial numbers tell us that despite the social media backlash, at least the campaign didn't hurt:
1 million new customers and 45 billion impressions in the six weeks following the campaign.
A 60% increase in AE’s stock price since the campaign’s launch.
-1% YoY comp sales and a 38.9% GM in Q2 FY25, compared to -3% and 29.6% respectively in Q1 FY25.
With that said, we all know it takes more than one quarter to see the actual impact of such shenanigans, we’ll be watching. In fact, American Eagle has been on a streak of celebrity collaborations, with Travis Kelce and Coco Gauff being the latest additions to their roster (and Jenna Ortega long before them in 2021), so we expect there to be much more where this came from.
In the meantime, as more and more of this industry engages in zigging—treating culture as something to be endlessly chased rather than something to be shaped—we’re going to count Craig Brommers and his team among the few who are bold enough to zag.
Photo credit: Vogue Business
What Mytheresa can teach us about building customer loyalty
#Apparel
#Luxury
#Loyalty
10 mins
Just a few weeks ago, I was sitting in a very posh apartment-turned-event venue in Milan and moderating a roundtable about brand loyalty. If you speak Italian, or you have the patience for YouTube's automatic subtitle translation, you can watch it here—go ahead, I'll wait.
The key takeaway from the roundtable was that, while there are numerous industry- and positioning-specific nuances, loyalty generally involves much more than simply bribing customers to shop with you. At its core, loyalty is made and lost in the promises that you make to your customers, and perhaps most importantly, in your ability to fulfill those promises.
This is evident when you look at Mytheresa's loyalty strategy. In fact, Vogue recently interviewed a few of their VIP customers, and this is what they had to say about their relationship with the brand:
“[My personal shopper] would make the best choices ever and they would always work — and they would always arrive the next day.”
“These guys know me. […] Even when I’m in Saint-Tropez, or London, or somewhere else it will always arrive: that yellow box!”
“Derek knows my taste, he knows what will work and he will never suggest I try something that is the latest thing in fashion if it’s not going to work for me — and he knows exactly what will work.”
If you leave out the stuff that only Mytheresa’s astronomical AOVs demand and afford, what you’re left with is a retailer that:
Knows what kind of customer it serves—very affluent, very busy professionals and their immediate families.
Knows what that customer needs—discretion, speed, convenience, intimacy, and quality.
Delivers on its end of the bargain every single time—just look at how often people say Mytheresa will always or never do something.
And while not all brands can offer personal assistants to their customers or fly said customers to Oslo for a Moncler-sponsored trip, all brands can afford to go above and beyond in meeting consumer expectations—or, to put it differently, no brand can really afford not to do it.
So, if you’re thinking about loyalty, start by asking yourself what promises you’re making to your customers, and whether those promises hold up to scrutiny, because everything else is downstream from that.
In other news...
🛍️ Rethinking CRO for luxury brands. Premium and luxury brands love to hate CRO—which is a shame, because optimization isn’t the enemy of brand identity. Creative and digital teams MUST find common ground, or else.
🧭 AI is reshaping product discovery—or is it? If you’re suffering from LinkedIn-induced FOMO and are looking for a more balanced, pragmatic take on GEO, you should check out our latest blog post. We look at the numbers to unpack what it is, whether it matters, and what’s worth doing today.
🚀 We are hiring! We’re looking for designers and developers to expand our team. If you ask “why” before “how,” believe commerce is more than just a website, and go out of your way to ship great work, we should talk.
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If you have any opinions on today's issue or have come across any interesting pieces you'd like us to feature in the next one, let us know.
Otherwise, we’ll see you in two weeks! 👋