<\/p>\n
The American Girl brand is, well, all-American. The dolls all come with their own stories, some tied to pivotal moments in American history, and the brand aims to instill \u201cconfidence, character, and courage\u201d in young girls, according to Jamie Cygielman, president of American Girl. Inspiring its target audience to learn and be the best version of themselves? Very wholesome!<\/p>\n
But if its TikTok account is any indication, the beloved doll and book brand isn\u2019t afraid to embrace some slightly less squeaky-clean internet humor\u2014and its audience isn\u2019t just<\/em> young girls.<\/p>\n Take, for example, one of its most popular recent videos: The anthropomorphized dolls take part in a trend where participants share traumatic stories before dumping their candy of choice into a large salad bowl, with Kit, Josefina, Molly, and Kirsten cheerfully sharing their own trauma, like living through the Great Depression or having their house burned down by a pet raccoon.<\/p>\n While the video is careful not to make light of the dolls\u2019 backstories, participating in the trend calls back to the ways some fans have discussed American Girl doll stories online. Older fans often joke about how brutal some of the dolls\u2019 backgrounds are, which they only realized as they\u2019ve grown up alongside the brand. The growing retrospection from older fans has even gone so far as to inspire an SNL<\/em> sketch.<\/p>\n Keeping up with that grown-up sentiment is key to how American Girl shows up online. \u201cThe overall goal of anything that we do within social in general is really to use our organic social to drive brand relatability with our audience,\u201d Cygielman told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n American Girl has been on TikTok since 2022, but the brand started taking a more trend-based approach in the last year The platform-native strategy, Cygielman said, is one prong of the brand\u2019s three pillars on social media: nostalgia, girlhood, and cultural relevancy.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, it\u2019s about engagement, both off-channel engagement as well as leaning into some pop culture, and memes often come out of that,\u201d Cygielman said. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s some of the videos that we want more shareability out of, a lot of things [focusing on] how to\u2019s or storytelling, etc. We sort of balance between all of these different pillars.\u201d<\/p>\n That balance has brought the brand some results. Over the past year, engagement has grown 10% across all social platforms, with TikTok-specific engagement clocking a 91% increase, while the brand\u2019s follower count on TikTok and Instagram has grown by 5% and 8%, respectively, according to the company.<\/p>\n Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Across platforms, American Girl aims to serve three audiences. Cygielman said the brand\u2019s core audience is girls ages three to 10 who are interested in owning and playing with the dolls, but it also targets millennial moms, who might have once owned American Girl dolls and are now purchasing for their children, as well as Gen Z, \u201cwho maybe more recently came out of girlhood\u201d themselves.<\/p>\n Those three audiences inform the type of content that appears on the brand\u2019s TikTok and other social media. \u201cTikTok is obviously geared more towards the adult fan and just kind of spreading the word about American Girl,\u201d Cygielman said. \u201cAnd as we continue to build out more lifestyle products that are targeted for that consumer base, reaching the younger consumer will obviously focus more with YouTube and some of these other mediums.\u201d<\/p>\n While Cygielgman recognizes that TikTok is a Gen Z-heavy platform, American Girl doesn\u2019t only post trends and memes on its account. A scroll through the page reveals sassy humor, inspirational stories, influencer visits, and behind-the-scenes videos that show the making of some of its more ambitious concepts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an ambassador program, so we\u2019ve got a bunch of mom influencers and family influencers, and just the content that they create, which is all really first-party\u2026it\u2019s really authentic, and that has driven just a lot of engagement and I think it\u2019s driving more people to come visit the stores,\u201d Cygielman said.<\/p>\n Watching American Girl\u2019s TikTok content will inevitably garner some giggles, but it\u2019s a far cry from the \u201cunhinged\u201d tone that\u2019s become more commonplace on some brand social media accounts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe clearly are looking at what\u2019s trending in social, what people are sharing, where there\u2019s definitely fan passion. And we want to make sure that, if it\u2019s appropriate for our brand, that we can lean into it,\u201d Cygielman said. \u201cThe appropriate [part] is important, because we are still very much a brand for families and so good, clean, fun, funny culture always tends to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, keeping storytelling front-and-center is a way to reflect the brand\u2019s core ethos while fitting in on video-heavy social platforms.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always been natural storytellers,\u201d Cygielman said, \u201cso I think the video medium with TikTok or Instagram Reels or any of these other social formats lends itself particularly well to our brand DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nA three-audience approach<\/h2>\n
Get marketing news you’ll actually want to read<\/h5>\n
Appropriate entertainment<\/h2>\n