The simple way American Eagle could have avoided the Sydney Sweeney situation

Fast Company

7 days ago

A big American brand partners with a young, beautiful celebrity in what it thinks is a clever and iconic piece of advertising. But as soon as the ad drops, the reaction is exactly the opposite of what the brand was hoping for. There is an immediate backlash against how the ad has casually, and ignorantly, waded into issues like identity politics, societal divisions, and systemic racism.
Sound familiar? Of course, it sounds a helluva lot like the swamp of hot takes American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney currently find themselves wandering waist-deep in. But I was actually talking about the infamous Pepsi and Kendall Jenner ad from 2017. So much has changed since then, but oh, how any given brand's lack of cultural awareness can remain constant.
Last week, American Eagle dropped a new campaign of ads featuring Sweeney. One has her sensually sliding into a pair of jeans while explaining what genes are. 'Jeans are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,' she said. 'My jeans are blue.' Cut to a male voice-over and tagline: 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.'
That double entendre between denim and genetic traits immediately raised the ire of the internet, with many pointing to the very blond hair and blue eyes of the campaign's star as a complicated and divisive ideal to be touting in 2025. Accusations hurled at the brand ranged from plain ignorance to full-on Nazi propaganda. On the other end are those finding fresh fodder for their screams against the 'woke mind virus.'
Wherever you stand on that spectrum, there is no denying the fact that the campaign has gone much bigger than it ever would have as a result of this outsize negative reaction. No matter what anyone says, this was certainly not the brand's intention.
Defining moment
This was no one-off social post, but a full-throated brand extravaganza. American Eagle chief marketing officer Craig Brommers was hyping its scale on LinkedIn last week, about how it would hit the Sphere in Las Vegas, 3D billboards in Times Square and L.A., a Euphoria partnership with HBO Max, and more. 'A massive thank-you and CONGRATULATIONS to our internal teams and external partners—and SYDNEY herself—for this defining moment,' Brommers wrote.
Ashley Schapiro, American Eagle's vice president of marketing, media, performance, and engagement, wrote a LinkedIn post outlining part of the process. She said that on a Zoom call with Sweeney, they asked her, 'How far do you want to push it?'
'Without hesitation, she smirked and said, 'Let's push it. I'm game.' Our response? 'Challenge Accepted,'' Schapiro wrote. 'From that moment on, Syd's sentiment guided every frame, every stitch and every unexpected twist of the 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans'👖campaign. Infusing our own personal cheeky energy and making us 😂 as we envisioned how the world would experience the launch. … The ⭐️ star power of Sydney and the double meaning behind the campaign has a culture-shaping power beyond anything I could have ever imagined being a part of—just check your social feeds.'
There are any number of ways to talk about this ad and campaign overall—from whether it intentionally or not promotes outdated genetic ideals to whether the intended audience is people who buy jeans or those buying meme stocks. But let's look at these spots as creative advertising ideas.
Reheated ideas
The spot featuring Sweeney squeezing into a pair of jeans while lying down and doling out a genetics lesson is a remarkable facsimile of Calvin Klein's 1980 spot with Brooke Shields giving her own breakdown of genetics while … you guessed it … squeezing into a pair of jeans while lying down.
Another Sweeney spot has her going all meta, insisting that she's not trying to get you to buy American Eagle jeans at all.
This hews incredibly close to a 2017 Sprite ad starring LeBron James, in which the NBA star insists that he's not here to convince you to drink the soda at all.
Just like the controversy itself, the ideas here aren't new. But there was a very simple way to feature the exact same work without all the negative baggage.
Meaning over intent
Marcus Collins, a consultant, author, and University of Michigan marketing professor, often writes about brands as vessels for meaning. Meaning is subjective, not objective, and that is something all brand marketers need to keep in mind. On Instagram, Collins said: 'Despite whatever the intentions the brand had in making this ad, what it communicates to people is that there is a prototypical standard for good genes: white, blonde hair, blue eyes. And of course, especially considering the political and social cultural backdrop that we're in right now, that could seem like some pretty bad dog whistling.'
Collins goes on to outline how American Eagle could have done this campaign without the whistle. Why not feature other people, who may still be objectively beautiful, to illustrate a variety of good jeans? Collins points to stars like Idris Elba or Halle Berry, but American Eagle needn't even have looked outside their own brand roster.
Last year, the brand launched a collab collection with tennis star Coco Gauff, as well as her second ad campaign for the slogan 'Live Your Life.' The 21-year-old is not only in the brand's ideal age bracket, she's also smart, stylish, beautiful, and just happens to have a collection of 19 professional tennis trophies, including the 2023 U.S. Open and 2025 French Open titles.
Now, those are some pretty damn good jeans, too.
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