Back to school is a key moment for retailers. For Old Navy, which is trying to break a sales slump, the 2026 season has arguably higher stakes than usual, but a revamped strategy that emphasizes creator content is showing early signs of promise.
“Right now, we believe that creators are the ones that are driving culture more than almost anything out there in the world of marketing,” said Damon Berger, senior vice president and head of shared marketing services at Old Navy’s parent Gap Inc.
For this year’s back-to-school campaign, Old Navy partnered with MrBeast, one of the top internet stars worldwide and a media mogul in his own right. The effort is the first fruit of a multiyear deal with the YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, and resulted in an over 22% jump in traffic to Old Navy kids’ assortment online in the days immediately following its launch, according to data the company shared with Marketing Dive. The MrBeast videos have generated over 100 million global views and 1.4 billion impressions on YouTube while boosting Old Navy’s viewership and engagement on other platforms, including TikTok.
“The numbers are staggering,” Berger said. “It shows that it really resonated with the people that we wanted it to resonate with.”
The MrBeast tie-up, which features comedic content, sweepstakes and giveaways supporting students, is a piece of a larger shift at Old Navy to recognize changing habits among its customers, particularly the gravitation toward creators. It is the first back-to-school campaign from the brand anchored on a single creator, Berger said, and focuses less on the glossy advertising historically associated with apparel retailer marketing.
“The previous back-to-school campaigns are those more highly produced ideas. Now this is about more storytelling from the authentic lens to the communities that we're trying to reach,” Berger said.
Rewiring marketing
The MrBeast tie-up follows a 4% decline in comparable sales at Old Navy in Q2, extending a slump for the largest brand in Gap Inc.’s portfolio. Summer marketing initiatives failed to deliver the expected bump in traffic, weighing on performance. Old Navy recently named Michael Francis as CEO, replacing Haio Barbeito as part of a planned transition.
Old Navy has been rewiring its marketing to try and turn things around, Gap Inc. CEO Richard Dickson said on the Q2 earnings call. Dickson, who has staged a noteworthy turnaround for the Gap brand, pointed to Old Navy’s MrBeast collaboration and a recent campaign with Cardi B centered on denim as signs of a more effective approach in action, though their impact on sales likely won’t be clear until the next round of earnings.
“With improved execution in August, we have seen the business pick up, reinforcing our confidence in the actions we are taking,” Dickson said on the Q2 earnings call. “We are clear on the path forward, and we believe we can drive stronger results from here.”
For Old Navy, the marketing change-up aligns with a broader trend that has seen retailers embrace more social- and creator-led tactics to connect with Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers who are wielding greater purchasing power. Among surveyed parents, 91% report their teenage children influence their brand preferences, research from HarrisX and Allison Worldwide found.
“Kids are hand-raising the brands that they want to be around, that they want to buy, more and more today than they were over the last two or three decades,” said Berger.
MrBeast not only brings a massive audience to Old Navy — he is the world’s largest YouTuber, wielding north of 515 million subscribers at press time — but also an emotional connective tissue, Berger said. Donaldson is known for his charitable work, which factors into Old Navy activations like giving away free lunch for a year to a middle school in Kansas and cash prizes and Old Navy gift cards to students who answered meme-themed trivia questions correctly.
Shoppers should expect a higher volume of creator content coming from Old Navy heading into the final stretch of the year, which includes the crucial holiday window, as Old Navy further bolsters the strategy established with MrBeast.
“We’re starting to get much more confident in how we think about really working with creators as a centerpiece to the go-to-market strategy for the brand,” Berger said.
