By: Gillian Follett, AdAge
American Eagle had hoped its collaboration with Sydney Sweeney would land it in the pop culture conversation on the cusp of the back-to-school shopping season. And indeed, the partnership pushed American Eagle into the social media spotlight following its launch last Wednesday, but not in the way it had anticipated.
The “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign, intended to help the brand rebound from slumping sales and a tumbling stock price, has instead sparked a raging internet firestorm, with the retailer facing backlash on multiple fronts.
When the campaign launched last week, American Eagle Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers called it “one of [American Eagle’s] biggest talent partnerships ever.” Plans called for a sweeping media push, spanning an upcoming takeover of the Sphere in Las Vegas; a 3D billboard in Times Square; and an extensive social media push spanning TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and BeReal, Brommers stated in a LinkedIn post at the time.
Now, as the campaign has come under fire, American Eagle has pulled back from its star-powered marketing push. It removed several campaign videos from social media. American Eagle did not respond to requests for comment, including on whether it plans to pull all paid media support on the campaign.
Why are people criticizing American Eagle’s collaboration with Sydney Sweeney?
Many consumers are slamming the retailer for its oversexualization of Sweeney across the campaign, including in a now-deleted social media video in which the camera slowly pans down to her breasts. Critics have accused American Eagle of pandering to the male gaze rather than its core audience of Gen Z women.
The larger controversy stems from what many consumers and marketers alike argue are racist undertones in the campaign’s pun that Sweeney, a blonde, blue-eyed white woman, has both “great jeans” and “great genes.” Most are pointing to a specific campaign video when making that argument, in which Sweeney narrates, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” The video ends with the camera focusing on her blue eyes. It, like the video highlighting Sweeney’s breasts, has been wiped from American Eagle’s social channels.
Dozens of commenters across the remaining videos have noted the campaign’s messaging that Sweeney has “great genes” implies that those who aren’t white, blonde and blue-eyed like her consequently have “bad genes.” Several have argued that American Eagle celebrating Sweeney’s genetics is an implicit promotion of eugenics. “This ad would’ve gone crazy in 1940s [G]ermany,” one commenter wrote on a video of Sweeney putting up a poster reading “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Genes.”
American Eagle’s partnership with Sweeney veers from its previous casting strategy of centering big campaigns around diverse Gen Z talent such as tennis star Coco Gauff and actors Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Jenna Ortega and Lola Tung, according to the person familiar with the matter. With Sweeney, the brand “got the impact but abandoned the passion and values,” the AdAge source said. “They traded views for long-term brand equity.”
Why is Sweeney herself controversial?
Although Sweeney hasn’t spoken directly about her political affiliation, she has been eagerly embraced by the far right, who have said her emergence as a sex symbol reflects the “death of wokeness.” Several conservatives celebrated her collaboration with American Eagle on social media, with some contrasting imagery from the campaign with photos of racially diverse and plus-size models the retailer has previously worked with.
Sweeney, who has starred in TV series including Euphoria and The White Lotus also has a history of partnering with brands on racy marketing stunts. Weeks ago, she collaborated with personal care brand Dr. Squatch to sell soap created using water she had previously bathed in.
While American Eagle likely sought to leverage Sweeney’s rising star power, she’s also “a complex figure,” said Sunny Bonnell, founder and CEO of brand strategy and design firm Motto. Marketers today need to anticipate consumers will “read between every line, looking for the connection between who you hire and what you say and stand for” when casting talent, she said.
“Brands no longer own the narrative. Audiences do,” Bonnell added. “So, while you can carefully script the story you want to tell, the public will remix, reframe, and reinterpret it through their own cultural lens.”
Who was on the marketing team behind the campaign?
According to the person familiar with the matter, creative agency Acre (founded by former American Eagle creative director Brad Shaffer) has produced nearly all of the brand’s marketing campaigns since 2020. American Eagle partners with marketing and communications agency Shadow to book celebrity talent such as Sweeney, they said. “Very little is done in-house on these specific campaigns outside of reviews and approvals, and a lot of those reviews are done in closed-door environments,” they added. Acre and Shadow did not respond to requests for comment.
How are consumers responding to the Sydney Sweeney campaign controversy?
On TikTok, some users are turning the campaign into a meme, with several creating parodies of the controversial video in which Sweeney talks about genetics. Singer and rapper Doja Cat shared a parody mocking the ad on Monday evening that had amassed 14.4 million views, as of this writing. The campaign has also triggered user-generated content discussing the political backdrop and the importance of brands having diverse marketing teams. Hailey Knott, a former social media manager for American Eagle, joined the conversation on TikTok, sharing a video that reached over 950,000 views in 24 hours.
How can marketers avoid similar controversies?
Bonnell advises marketers to put consumer insights first when developing creative campaigns and selecting talent. In American Eagle’s case, that would’ve meant carefully considering how the brand’s largely Gen Z audience could potentially perceive its partnership with Sweeney and “running the casting through a cultural, strategic lens, not just a marketing one,” she said.
“You can pore over insights, you can lock in the greatest talent, you can vet the messaging and still miss … because audiences don’t respond to strategy decks. They respond to meaning,” Bonnell said. “And meaning is very fluid. It’s contextual, and it’s shaped by culture in real-time. We live in a culture where every move—whether it’s by a public figure or a brand—is now read for meaning.”
