{"id":112681,"date":"2025-08-02T10:07:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T10:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/112681\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T10:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T10:07:12","slug":"american-eagle-responds-to-the-sydney-sweeney-ad-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/112681\/","title":{"rendered":"American Eagle Responds to the Sydney Sweeney Ad Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter more than a week of near-nonstop scrutiny on social media, in the mainstream media and among consumers, American Eagle Outfitters<\/a> has addressed the controversy facing its new ad campaign<\/a> featuring Sydney Sweeney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sportswear and denim company posted on its Instagram<\/a> Friday afternoon, saying: \u201c\u2019Sydney Sweeney<\/a> Has Great Jeans<\/a>\u2018 is and always was about the jeans<\/a>. Her jeans. Her story. We\u2019ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn one of the campaign\u2019s promotional videos, the 27-year-old \u201cWhite Lotus\u201d and \u201cEuphoria\u201d actress is seen lying on the floor zipping up her jeans, as she says, \u201cGenes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.\u201d The camera then focuses on her face, when she says, \u201cMy jeans are blue.\u201d The narrator then says the campaign\u2019s tag line: \u201cSydney Sweeney has great jeans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome questioned the narrative and the use of \u201cgenes,\u201d seeing a sign of eugenics.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSydney Sweeney<\/p>\n

\n\tExecutives at American Eagle were not available Friday afternoon to comment further, according to Rebekah Margulis, associate vice president of fashion and retail at Shadow, the outside public relations firm that American Eagle works with.<\/p>\n

\n\tSweeney has not commented publicly about the controversy, nor has the stylist Molly Dickson, who worked on the campaign. Sweeney\u2019s most recent post to her 25 million Instagram<\/a> followers reads, \u201cI have great jeans\u2026now you can too.\u201d That included a short video from the campaign of her closing the trunk of a car and then wiping her hands on her backside as she walked away.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSydney Sweeney for American Eagle.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmerican Eagle\u2019s response post had racked up more than 36,600 likes and 5,483 comments. Some offered such remarks as, \u201cI can\u2019t believe this is all real.\u201d And \u201cIt\u2019s really clear who you\u2019re all aligning yourselves with and the world\u2019s watching and acting (shopping) accordingly.\u201d Others offered \u201cLiberal meltdown incoming.\u201d And \u201cYour intern really cooked with this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about AEO\u2019s response Friday, Sacred Heart University professor David Loranger said its approach is \u201ccounter to everything that is a branding standard and what business schools teach about crisis management. Perhaps American Eagle was surprised by the reaction to this ad, but if they had taken the time to beta test it in the first place, they wouldn\u2019t be in this mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom Loranger\u2019s viewpoint, \u201cto get such a vehement reaction from [some] consumers and to double down is sort of unheard of, and in my opinion, ignores their target market.\u201d He compared the campaign to one that might have been done by American Apparel\u2019s founder Dov Charney or Abercrombie & Fitch\u2019s former chief executive officer Mike Jeffries in their heydays.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSydney Sweeney<\/p>\n

\n\tLoranger said, \u201cTo disregard market reaction is not only arrogant but shows complete indifference to consumers. The market determines what\u2019s acceptable and not acceptable, not the brand. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Who knows? It may become an advertising business case where we will teach what not to do. In any event, they should fire their copywriter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFormer Levi\u2019s brand president Jennifer Sey, who is CEO of XX-XY Athletics, offered a different take. \u201cThere is no reason for American Eagle Outfitters<\/a> to apologize or backtrack because some women on TikTok<\/a>, who probably never bought the brand anyway, don\u2019t like it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tSey said she has been pitched \u201cthis exact campaign many times\u201d over the years. She added, \u201cIt\u2019s an obvious one. A play on words. Nothing more. A beautiful woman, looking great in her jeans, [who is] at the top of her career and celebrity, and in on the joke? Sweeney\u2019s self-awareness and humor are what make the ad unique and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSey offered, \u201cIf I were advising American Eagle Outfitters, I\u2019d tell them to ignore the haters. Stand strong. Don\u2019t cower to the bullies who want to make everything a tale of oppression \u2014 even a fun ad campaign for jeans. The cancelers can\u2019t cancel anymore. They\u2019ve lost their power. They just haven\u2019t realized it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSew Branded\u2019s founder Scott Woodward said Friday that the jeans-genes \u201cclever word play\u201d in the campaign \u201cjust feels off\u201d given the current cultural zeitgeist and that \u201cstruck a nerve with loyal\u00a0Gen Z consumers and advertising media types, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDigging in and not acknowledging how it made consumers feel might exacerbate the situation, according to Woodward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cConfidence in and celebrating everyone is a definitely good message for them, as they\u2019ve owned that successfully and beautifully for a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tNoting how the AEO brand case study on how to know your consumer is one that he has shared while teaching students at Parsons School of Design, Woodward said he was \u201crooting\u201d for AEO, as Sweeney was another wonderful, culturally relevant partner with whom to collaborate on their storied jeans brand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Loranger speculated about how Sweeney\u2019s personal brand may be impacted by the backlash. \u201cHere, it may be the sponsor brand that drags down the celebrity, rather than the reverse, as in the Travis Scott<\/a>-Dior fiasco. Her people are probably in damage control mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few years ago Dior postponed the release of its menswear collaboration with the musician after 10 people were killed in a stampede at his Astroworld music festival in Houston in 2021.<\/p>\n

Prior to the launch in an interview with WWD,\u00a0American Eagle\u2019s chief marketing officer Craig Brommers\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>described the campaign as \u201cpotentially one of the biggest gets in American Eagle history.\u201d He said, \u201cSydney Sweeney<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is the \u2018It\u2019 girl of the moment, and she is helping us create the \u2018It\u2019 jeans campaign of the season. Sydney really encapsulates American Eagle. She is the girl who can play the red carpet but she\u2019s also the girl next door, and that duality really defines Gen Z and Millennials.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Sweeney campaign\u2019s July 23 launch reportedly helped to increase the market value of AEO by $400 million. <\/p>\n

\n\tAEO\u2019s stock closed Friday down less than 1 percent at $10.74.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than a week of near-nonstop scrutiny on social media, in the mainstream media and among consumers,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":112682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[71237,171,563,71238,21218,2397,12536,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-112681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-american-eagle-outfitters","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-instagram","11":"tag-jeans","12":"tag-sydney-sweeney","13":"tag-tiktok","14":"tag-travis-scott","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114958621454455914","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}