Things We Can Learn from American Eagle’s Recent Campaign
In late July, American Eagle launched a new campaign starring a popular actress, Sydney Sweeney. She is best known for her role as Cassie in Euphoria, and as Beatrice in Anyone But You. She currently has 25.1 million followers on Instagram, and seems to be pretty well liked. So this campaign theoretically should have done very well, so what went wrong?
For starters, the campaign sparked outrage and backlash almost instantly, as most social media users and customers felt like American Eagle was hyper focused on Sweeney’s appearance and physical features, not their brand or even the jeans. They honed in too much on sex appeal and the campaign overall lacked social awareness.
In the main 10 second ad, Sweeney says “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” The script of this ad particularly has people’s opinions very skewed. Most people are saying online that the script and her tone is generally weird, and inauthentic. Not to mention she says “often determines” when offspring genes ARE determined by parents… again, just weird.
We have seen the backlash from social media users, celebs like Doja Cat, influencers, and other brands weigh in on the controversy of this ad, and there have been thousands of memes and reactions posted to TikTok and Instagram taking serious digs at the campaign.
Brands such as Abercrombie, Old Navy, and Gap have also responded by sharing their more recent denim campaigns, all with more inclusive and more representations of women and different sizes. Abercrombie even wrote “what denim campaigns should look like” on a recent Reel.
Why This Matters:
Brands today are no longer “just selling things.” Words and visuals shape culture. Messaging perceived as tone-deaf, or worse can damage long term trust, especially with Gen Z and socially conscious consumers. Even if sales spiked, initially and stock prices rose, the reputational risk is real and the real damage takes time to undo.
Here is how American Eagle responded to the backlash:
Unfortunately, they did not take any accountability or show any remorse for long time customers who were bothered by this campaign. They did not acknowledge any missteps or harm they caused, which will not rebuild that trust with consumers in the future.
When creative ideas don’t land as intended, especially with expensive budgets and celebs, brands like AE have the opportunity to show leadership, not defensiveness. We would like to see American Eagle go in a different direction in future campaigns.
