What Marketers Can Learn From American Eagle's Sydney Sweeney Campaign

Welcome back to Brand Studies, the series where I dissect brands doing smart marketing, to help inspire your own. And today, “smart” is debateable, to say the least.

That’s right, today, we’re breaking down American Eagle’s controversial Sydney Sweeney campaign.

The last time I heard anyone talk about American Eagle, I was wearing pukka shell necklaces and blasting Jack’s Mannequin. So, when the brand was making headlines in 2025, I knew there had to be good reason. Turns out, it was a bad one.

In this brand study, we’ll unpack the campaign, dive into the response, and see if the ROI was worth the PR for American Eagle.

"Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans"

So, on July 23rd 2025, American Eagle rolled out what they called their biggest and most ambitious marketing campaign to date, Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans 

The campaign aimed to hype their denim line by playing on a pun that swapped “genes” as in DNA,  for “jeans” like the pants…which is so clever because you know…they sound alike…but are actually two different things, get it? Yeah.

All this came right on the heels of a different Sydney Sweeney campaign where Dr. Squatch sold soap made from her bathwater. Unsurprisingly, it sold out - because the only thing looser than creative restraint are the wallets of horny dudes online.

But what American Eagle lacked in creativity, they made up for in scale. The brand spared no expense on the rollout:

There were 3D billboards, video ads, social activations, AI-powered try-ons and even a takeover of the Las Vegas Sphere. On their webstore, they offered “Syd’s Picks” which is a collection of items handpicked by Sweeney herself.

As part of these picks, American Eagle offered a limited-edition “Sydney Jean.” Proceeds from these jeans would go towards a mental health charity called Crisis Text Line.

Because nothing says “end the stigma” like a pair of ultra wide-leg pants.

The Sydney Jean also featured a butterfly patch on the back pocket, which was meant to promote domestic violence awareness. The Butterfly is a known symbol for domestic violence awareness, so this makes sense.

But denim jeans? Not so much.

What Caused the Controversy Around American Eagle's Campaign?

However, it wasn’t the jeans of the denim variety that caused the outrage. It was the genes of the biological variety.

Here’s where it went sideways: A teaser clip was dropped on social media which had Sydney saying, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”

Right.

So, what does any of that have to do with mental health and domestic violence awareness? Ah yes, nothing at all. 

Unfortunately, the punny wordplay didn’t land with everyone. Many people saw it as tone-deaf, blaming American Eagle for glorifying beauty standards and eugenics. Meanwhile, others took the campaign at face value and applauded it as being clever and bold.

What started as online backlash quickly escalated, as the media amplified everything. If that wasn’t enough, high-profile figures like Lizzo and even President Donald Trump jumped into the ring, drawing even more attention.

Rather than respond immediately, American Eagle stayed silent for more than a week, before issuing a statement on August 1. In their statement, they said “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

While American Eagle decided it was going to stick to its guns, it went ahead and pulled the video clip that sparked the outrage. It also began rolling out photos featuring models of different ethnicities, which actually drew more ire from audiences claiming the brand was just trying to save face.

A poll from The Economist and YouGov asked a nationally representative sample of US adults what they thought about the ad. 39% found it clever, while 12% found it offensive. But the majority was either unsure or simply didn’t care.

Measuring the Business Impact of "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans"

Alright, so let’s get to the important stuff: the impact. Was the juice worth the squeeze for American Eagle? 

Let’s start with their stock…

The campaign helped American Eagle’s stock price climb roughly 10% upon debut. However, when President Trump voiced his support for the campaign, the stock popped another 24%, making it the stock’s biggest jump since their heyday in 2000.

But experts believe the jump is a flash in the pan and doesn’t change how investors view AE’s business outlook. While the stock rose higher than its July lows, it’s still down over 20% on the year and nearly 40% from its peak last year. 

Nothing remarkable there, but let’s look at sales.

Did the campaign give American Eagle a sales boost?

Not a chance.

Foot traffic to AE’s stores actually dropped 4% the week after the campaign launched, then nearly 9% the week after that. To be fair, Abercrombie and H&M also dipped, but nowhere near as much, which tells us the campaign is likely the difference-maker. 

On top of that, AE’s Market share in denim stayed stuck between 17.5% and 19%. So for all the noise, the campaign didn’t actually pull more people into stores or sell more products.

Ok - what about digital, any growth there?

Kinda…but not really.

AE’s website traffic shot up over 60% at the height of the buzz, only to return to earth not long after, proving the spike was more about curiosity, than conversions.

On social media, their numbers were just as shaky. On YouTube, AE saw a growth of 4,000 new subscribers and 3.9 million streams since campaign launch 👇

On Instagram, they generated over 150,000 new followers and saw an additional 28,000 on Facebook 👇

But when you zoom out on the year, the growth is still sludgey, with their total followers being lower now than they were at the start 👇

What Can Marketers Learn From American Eagle's Sydney Sweeney Campaign?

While the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some hard learned lessons for marketers here. 

Lesson # 1: If It’s Not Clear, It’s Not Clever

Let’s be honest, the “jeans” pun didn’t mean anything - someone just thought it sounded clever. It’s like if Mobil ran a campaign saying, “We give you gas.” Double the entendre, zero the impact.

It’s nice that AE wanted to support mental health and domestic violence awareness, but this campaign’s theme had no clear connection to either thing. While AE rolled out some exciting activations to support the campaign, it wasn’t enough to save a weak idea. 

Lesson # 2:  Brands Might Own the Creative, But They Don’t Own The Narrative

We live in a hyper-connected world where opinions spread fast. So, it’s critical for brands to be mindful and anticipate the ways their messages can be interpreted. And they should do this at the drawing board, not the launchpad. 

This doesn’t mean that marketers should stick to vanilla ideas and avoid taking risks, because let’s be honest, you can’t please everyone. But if you’re going to court controversy, you better be prepared for it. And American Eagle wasn’t. They got caught up in the cuteness of the campaign and its activations instead of making sure their concept was solid and meaningful. 

Lesson # 3: Late Reaction is Worse Than No Reaction. 

Trust in marketers is already scarce, and American Eagle didn’t do themselves any favors here. In PR, a late reaction can be worse than no reaction and American Eagle’s silence sent the wrong message. Not only did they look unprepared, but it came off like they didn’t care enough. 

When they finally spoke, the message was all over the place. One second they’re standing by the campaign, admitting no wrongdoing, But in the background they’re quietly removing the clip that sparked the outrage. Then they started posting more ethnically diverse models, which came off like a scramble to save face.

If they really wanted to stand by their decision, they should’ve shown they heard their audience, acknowledged how people felt, and explained their intent. Instead, they dropped the ball.

More Noise or More Customers?

It’s been a few months since the campaign launched and American Eagle’s CEO came out and said that the Sydney Sweeney campaign was a "success" and a major contributor to its brand’s sales falling by 1% instead of the expected 3% in Q2 2025. Interesting gauge for success!

But what's really interesting is attributing the Q2 performance to the Sweeney campaign, when it dropped 10 days before AE's Q2 FY2025 ended...

It's even more interesting when you consider studies show that, following the campaign's launch, the brand lost foot traffic in its stores and its share of the denim market was unchanged.

Sure, the AEO stock received a nice boost from Trump hyping the campaign, but it cooled off not long after, dropping from ~$13 back to the ~$12, only to jump back up after AEO subsequently announced its new partnership with Travis Kelce, the day after he got engaged to Taylor Swift.

Anyway, stock price does not equate to long-term business health. At the end of the day, the company hasn't fundamentally improved, its comparable sales are still negative and growth is flat.

What makes this campaign controversial is that it transcended marketing and has since become an unsuspecting centerpiece in a tug-of-war of political correctness. Just look at AE’s social posts: whenever Sydney Sweeney shows up, the comments are flooded with people who openly admit they’re not customers, but are there to cheer on the political pushback. At the same time, plenty of others pile in just to say they hated the campaign and voice their concerns about it.

In both cases, it’s noise, not new customers.