When Outrage Sells: The Sydney Sweeney–American Eagle Playbook
Inside Sydney Sweeney’s Lucrative Brand Deals – American Eagle, Armani, Ford and a Bathwater Soap Stunt
The denim brand’s “great genes” controversy shows how culture war marketing can lift sales and visibility but at what long term cost?
American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign has become one of the most talked-about ads of 2025, sparking accusations of racism, sexism and even eugenics while driving a 20% share price jump and selling out key denim lines. The back-to-school promotion, fronted by the Euphoria star, shows how engineered controversy can boost sales, ignite political debate, and push a brand deep into the cultural conversation.
Sweeney has faced criticism for her growing list of brand endorsements, ranging from American Eagle and Dr. Squatch whose campaign even featured soap made with her bathwater to Armani Beauty, Miu Miu, Guess, Ford, and lingerie label Parade. She has previously defended the volume of these partnerships, arguing that her acting income alone does not cover the costs of maintaining her professional team.
Image copyright American Eagle
In late July, American Eagle lit the fuse on one of the most talked about advertising campaigns of the summer. The company’s largest marketing investment to date came wrapped in a simple play on words. Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans. A pun so obvious that it almost invites a second look. Or in this case, an entire week of national headlines, furious tweets, late night TV monologues and the occasional presidential endorsement.
Sweeney, best known for her roles in Euphoria and The White Lotus, appears in the campaign’s video and print ads in various denim fits. On paper it is straightforward fashion marketing. In practice it became a lightning rod. Critics accused American Eagle of slipping a white supremacist dog whistle into the cultural conversation. The word genes, they argued, paired with imagery of a blue eyed blonde actress, evoked Nazi era eugenics. The campaign’s sexualised tone also set off alarms in parts of the feminist community.
Once the outrage machine switched on, the story moved fast. CNN ran segments. Conservative pundits mocked the backlash. TikTok filled with both parody videos and furious explainers. President Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social, praising Sweeney and the brand, and calling the ad the hottest out there. Hours later, American Eagle’s share price spiked more than twenty per cent. It was the sharpest daily gain in nearly twenty five years.
Image copyright American Eagle
That kind of market reaction is enough to make any CMO sit up. And it prompts a blunt question. Is outrage now just another lever in the marketing toolkit? For American Eagle, the early signals suggest yes.
Kantar surveyed a thousand US consumers who were already aware of the ad. The gender split was even. Most respondents were white, though the survey captured views across ethnic groups. The topline finding. 62% of men and 50% of women said they were likely to consider buying from the brand after seeing the campaign. Among younger adults, that intent jumped to more than 70%. Even among respondents aware of the racial controversy, a clear majority said they might still shop at American Eagle.
Drill deeper and the data is messier. Cultural intelligence firm Collage Group rates the brand below average on cultural fluency. That means it has less equity to cushion against missteps. The same week that Kantar found strong purchase intent, analytics firm Pass By reported a near 4% drop in national store visits. In the South, foot traffic fell more than nine per cent. In the Northeast, it rose more than seven per cent.
Those contradictions matter. They show that while controversy can expand awareness, it does not automatically translate into more people walking into stores. What it does do is cement the brand in the cultural conversation.
Craig Brommers, American Eagle’s chief marketing officer, has been open about the campaign’s intent. He commented that the back to school season is the Super Bowl for denim sales. This was the biggest ad investment in company history, designed to cut through the noise. The decision to front the campaign with Sweeney was calculated. She is photogenic, highly recognisable, and already a fixture in multiple brand partnerships from Armani Beauty to Samsung.
Craig Brommers, CMO American Eagle
The execution was a deliberate pivot away from the cause-based marketing that dominated much of the past decade. In its place American Eagle has chosen an older, simpler formula. Sex sells. Jennifer Sey, former Levi’s marketing chief, described it as normie advertising. No social justice agenda. No earnest activism. Just denim, an attractive model and a double entendre.
It is not a strategy without precedent. Think back to Calvin Klein’s Brooke Shields ads in the 1980s or Cindy Crawford’s Pepsi spot in the early nineties. Those campaigns were criticised as overtly sexual and exploitative. They also became some of the most iconic ads of their era. The risk is that the cultural ground has shifted. A joke or image that landed in 1992 might now be filtered through a far more polarised and politicised lens.
The political dimension here is impossible to ignore. The campaign’s biggest boosts in visibility came after it was picked up by right leaning media. Fox News mentioned Sweeney and American Eagle sixty two times in a single week. Conservative influencers revelled in the outrage from the left. By contrast, progressive critics saw the ad as a step backwards in representation and inclusivity. The company responded with a short Instagram post insisting the campaign is and always has been about the jeans.
So what are the lessons for marketers? First, if you plan to lean into controversy, you need a crisis playbook ready to go. That means anticipating both the content of the backlash and the channels through which it will travel. Second, attention is not the same as long term brand equity. You can spike sales and share price in the short term and still damage your standing with key segments. Third, know your starting point. A brand with low cultural fluency has less room for error.
For American Eagle, the bet appears to be working in the short term. The Sydney Jean sold out online. The stock is up. The brand has reinserted itself into the cultural bloodstream. But it is worth remembering that marketing history is littered with campaigns that burned bright and faded fast. Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney tie in. Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner protest ad. Target’s Pride Month backlash. Each became a case study in what happens when a brand misreads or underestimates the cultural moment.
In the end this campaign might mark a shift back to sales driven provocation over purpose driven positioning. Or it might simply be a one off that capitalised on the unique combination of a celebrity with cultural heat, a provocative slogan and a news cycle primed for outrage. Either way it underscores a reality that makes some marketers uncomfortable. Outrage, when engineered and managed, can sell product. The question is whether it can build a brand.
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