So far, the controversy surrounding American Eagle Outfitters’ campaign starring actress Sydney Sweeney has created a lot of noise for the brand, but not much else.
Traffic to American Eagle’s U.S. website soared following the campaign’s rollout on July 23, rising more than 60% on July 28 compared to the same day last year, according to data and insights company Consumer Edge.
Despite the hubbub around the campaign—both positive and negative—the brand’s market share has remained relatively flat.
Figures from Consumer Edge, which collects anonymous debit and credit card transactions from millions of U.S. consumers, indicate that a sales bump has not yet accompanied the heated online debate.
Case in point: American Eagle’s control of the denim market has hovered between 17.5% and 19% since the controversy began.
Additional data from Consumer Edge reveals that any partisan gap in purchase behavior between Democrats and Republicans has yet to emerge.
“The American Eagle/Sydney Sweeney story is a useful reminder that viral moments don’t necessarily translate into immediate consumer behavior change,” Michael Gunther, head of insights at Consumer Edge, wrote in a blog post. “Interest may spike, but unless that attention converts into spending, the business impact remains limited.”
Not everything, however, has been static for American Eagle since the campaign launched. One metric that remains up is the company’s share price, which has climbed around 15% since the Sweeney ad debuted in late July, thanks in part to an assist from President Donald Trump.
The Campaign That Cried Eugenics
For those who haven’t been on their phones for the last three weeks, a quick recap: American Eagle’s campaign, starring 27-year-old actress Sweeney, sparked intense debate for its wordplay with the homophones “jeans” and “genes.” One ad showed a supine Sweeney pulling on her terrific America Eagle jeans while talking about her terrific…genes.
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,” Sweeney purrs, while a male narrator closes the spot with the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Some viewers took the message as a joke, but others saw it as a coded reference to the social desirability of being blond-haired, blue-eyed, and white—like Sweeney—and even as support for eugenics.
American Eagle let the fires burn for a few days before issuing a clarifying statement on August 1. But while AE pulled the one provocative ad, it left the campaign and slogan in place—for better or worse.
Genetic wordplay aside, as any first-year business major knows, sexual suggestiveness is part of the marketer’s toolbox—especially in fashion advertising. As history has shown, it can benefit a brand handsomely.
For example, starting in 2007, Nascar driver Danica Patrick appeared in 22 spots for GoDaddy, usually wearing a too-small tank top that struggled to contain her. In a 2009 Super Bowl spot, she took a shower while three frat boys controlled her movements via their computer. Tacky as these ads were, they helped make GoDaddy a household name. When the brand went public in 2015, Patrick was on hand to do pushups on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
But promoting perfect bodies and conventional beauty standards has also backfired. Abercrombie & Fitch turned into a money-printing machine when it began promoting itself with shirtless beefcake boys. But when CEO Mike Jeffries explained the marketing strategy to a reporter—admitting that the brand was “exclusionary” and that appealing to “old” and “fat” people would make A&F “totally vanilla”—millennial shoppers turned on the brand as a symbol of exclusion and discrimination. (A&F has since regained some status among millennials for introducing inclusive sizing and modern, business-friendly attire for young professional women.)
Odds are that American Eagle won’t suffer that sort of fate, but the Sweeney spots are a reminder that sex doesn’t always sell.
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