American Eagle’s marketing has been a lightning rod for discussion lately, but some of the apparel retailer’s most experimental bets could be flying under the radar. In May, the brand launched a subscription-based Substack newsletter, Off The Cuff, with the first issues guest-edited by After School writer Casey Lewis.
It may not be a Sydney Sweeney-level cultural event, but the concept speaks to how retail brands are exploring new ways to leverage creators in the chase for authenticity while trying to stay on the ball with emergent media channels. Off The Cuff runs counter to the trend toward ultra-short social video in the TikTok mold, analyzing the style zeitgeist through written editorial delivered directly to customers’ email inboxes.
“Part of what’s so interesting about Substack and the engagement is it is long-form,” said Ashley Schapiro, vice president of marketing, media, performance and engagement at American Eagle, during a panel at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show earlier this month. “Now, you have this below-the-fold newsletter that people are reading top-to-bottom.”
At the annual industry gathering, it was clear that American Eagle isn’t the only retailer dipping into services like Substack to sharpen brand voice in 2026. These editorially driven ventures come as creators are similarly looking to diversify outside of platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, where engagement is increasingly algorithm-dictated and raw follower counts don’t carry the same weight they used to.
“[Creators] are widening their aperture of where they build their communities beyond social,” said Sarah Henry, head of content, influencer and commerce at Walmart, on the panel with Schapiro and a representative from H&M. “We’re seeing that some of our most engaged creators, they’re also building communities on Substack, on Discord, on Reddit, etc.”
Stretching the influencer bounds
NRF’s Big Show provided additional evidence that the creator economy is becoming a central piece of retail marketing strategies while continuing to splinter in different directions that can be hard to keep tabs on. Total U.S. ad spending on creators was on track to hit $37 billion in 2025, a 26% year-over-year increase, according to a November forecast from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Nearly half of marketers surveyed by the IAB identified creator content as a “must have.”
“I can guarantee you if there is a priority within the organization from a business perspective, it will have a large-scale backing influencer strategy and plan,” said Noah Gonzalez, head of brand PR and talent relations at H&M Americas, during the talk with Henry and Schapiro
Alternative creator channels like Substack and Beehiiv are generating interest as brands seek to balance out “snackable” video strategies that boost brand awareness — as well as sales, thanks to social commerce features like TikTok Shop — with a more in-depth form of community connection. Subscription-based models open avenues for repeat engagement and weaving together a larger brand narrative that’s hard to accomplish with a six-second video ad.
“Long-form is interesting from a consumer perspective because it’s really about diving deeper,” said Walmart’s Henry. “It’s unpacking something, it’s finding information, it’s establishing a new routine.”
For American Eagle, Substack stretches the bounds of what constitutes influencer marketing and could appeal to Gen Zers who — despite frequently being pegged as smartphone-addled — have expressed interest in ways to slow down and unplug. Following the initial issues done in collaboration with Lewis, American Eagle enlisted Tariro Makoni, author of the Trademarked newsletter, for additional installments of Off The Cuff.
“Not everything meaningful happens on a social feed anymore, and we started to pay attention to how the inbox offers a more intimate space for perspective and conversation,” said Schapiro in an email following the NRF conference.
“Strategically, this work serves a different purpose than traditional influencer marketing, with the goal of building credibility, trust and long-term brand building,” Schapiro added. “The goal is to engage our current audience in a new way, while also continuing to reach a new consumer who is looking for more in-depth storytelling.”
Human-powered brand building
Beyond the storytelling potential, some retailers see community-oriented platforms as a safeguard against artificial intelligence, a technology that is reshaping how brands appear in search environments. On Google, AI is deprecating traditional SEO as focus shifts to AI Overviews that condense information from an array of sources in one text box. Brands that do the heavy lifting to embed themselves in the sources that feed AI Overviews stand to benefit, according to experts.
“A lot of those forums are not generating content from your own [brand] voice, but your extended community,” said Jamie Domenici, CMO of marketing platform Klaviyo, in an interview on the NRF show floor. “Investing in building that up is driving a lot more discoverability in search.”
At NRF, an executive from Abercrombie & Fitch described embracing “human-powered brand building,” or getting regular customers and creators to advocate on behalf of the brand to boost visibility. The idea is to prioritize editorial content and copy in areas like FAQs, Substacks and Reddit versus solely boosting social video.
“That type of content is becoming, I think, increasingly more important in this world of GEO/AEO,” said Samir Desai, chief digital and technology officer at Abercrombie & Fitch, during an NRF talk.
AI Overviews’ prominent place in Google amplifies the need for retailers to be authorities on subject matter relevant to their business, other panelists agreed. Lowe’s, for instance, is capitalizing on formats like how-to videos while putting less priority on keyword crawling. The home-improvement retailer is making larger efforts to shore up its creator capabilities. Last June, it rolled out a creator network to deepen its connection with young consumers, with sign-on from top names like MrBeast.
“Content has always been king, and I think content in a more true, trusted and authentic fashion — that’s where generative engines are going,” said Neelima Sharma, senior vice president of omnichannel and e-commerce technology at Lowe’s, on the panel with Abercrombie’s Desai.
What’s coming next
Successful creator content is also being converted into paid media more frequently by retailers, not only for social campaigns, but also digital, email and out of home. On several NRF panels, brands claimed creator content that was repurposed as working media delivers better results than more traditional, polished-looking ads.
“Creator content ... I bet my bottom dollar is that it outperforms branded assets every single time, and not by a little by a lot,” said H&M’s Gonzalez. “There’s always going to be a place and importance for branded assets, but creator content always performs better.”
On the flip side, the proliferation and fragmentation of creator content poses challenges to measurement at a point in time where CMOs face greater pressure to show their work supports the bottom line. Retail marketers need to account for the fact that return on investment can be “looser” in emergent channels than via direct paid clicks, according to Klaviyo’s Domenici.
“Multitouch attribution, which is kind of a geeky term, I think it’s never been more important,” said Domenici. “If you just go after one touch, which is paid media, it’s very easy, but that’s just not the way that people or consumers are interacting with brands anymore.”
For now, experiments on platforms like Substack may remain just that — experiments — and marketers should approach these innovations with a degree of caution and by putting brand fundamentals first.
“Anyone who says that they know [what’s next], they’re either crazy or they’re trying to sell you something,” said Gonzalez. “There are so many shiny, flashy things within the marketing world ... if you’re continuously chasing, you’re going to derail, you’re going to be lost.”
