Sydney Sweeney proved she’s good for business, despite online hate that seems to follow Hollywood’s latest “It Girl.”
Sweeney’s American Eagle ad campaign boosted the jeans company’s shares by 10%, according to data from Brokerchooser. The controversial ad campaign, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” added roughly $400 million in market value and amplified the brand’s web traffic by 100%.
Branding and crisis-reputation experts explained why controversy can lead to coverage as Sweeney’s star power and strategic PR turned negative attention into measurable success.
“To be clear, in the current ‘Attention Economy’ clicks and coverage are not the same thing; AE’s ‘good genes’ campaign drew the latter,” branding expert Doug Eldridge told Fox News Digital.
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“In this case, controversy led to coverage, which created sustained attention and interest, all of which produced increased investment. The uptick in the AE stock price speaks for itself,” Eldridge explained. “A 10% increase – which was almost entirely attributable to one, standalone, campaign – is incredible. They’ve always made the same jeans, they just didn’t have the same ‘go to market’ approach when it came to brand messaging.”
“Sydney Sweeney was (and is) more than a dorm-room pinup or the proverbial ‘it girl’ of the moment that we’ve seen so many times in the past,” the founder of Achilles PR said. “She has an authentic, unapologetic sense of self that is rarely seen in Young Hollywood.”
Sweeney’s “true value” was showcased in “how she comported herself in the media” after the American Eagle campaign, Eldridge explained.
“She didn’t grovel or backpedal; there was no performative mea culpa from the starlet. She shut down criticism, not with witty banter or overly defensive conjecture; she simply smiled and said nothing,” the branding expert said. “Her near silence was worth a thousand words and tens of millions of dollars. That type of stoic sincerity is hard to find, given the scourge of cancel culture, pressure campaigns, and the endless lists of -ists and -isms that are often attached to those who tack against the tide of the ‘mainstream morality police.’ AE might’ve been the big financial winner, but Sweeney emerged the champion.”
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Sweeney’s collaboration with American Eagle for it’s fall clothing campaign, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” sparked mixed reactions. In one version of the ad, Sweeney stated: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
While some dubbed the campaign as “tone-deaf” due to the alleged racial undertones, others praised the actress for killing “woke” advertising. According to Salon, the term “great genes” was historically used to “celebrate whiteness, thinness and attractiveness.”
American Eagle defended Sweeney amid the backlash but removed the controversial video from the brand’s social media accounts. “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans,” the statement said. “Her Jeans. Her Story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way.”
Sweeney even received support from President Donald Trump.
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While Sweeney’s campaign proved to be good for business despite the hate, crisis and reputation-management expert Dave Quast noted it might not last long-term.
“It is unlikely that a single marketing campaign would drive stock performance on its own. However, in the short term, with the increased awareness this campaign generated by going viral on social media, coupled with extensive discussion in the press, it’s no wonder that increased awareness would lead to a boost in online traffic which would, in turn, boost sales,” the president of EDQ Strategies, a crisis and reputation management firm, told Fox News Digital.
“It remains to be seen whether a brand that is typically associated with young people will see these customers remain,” Quast added. “American Eagle isn’t helped in the long-term when conservative culture warriors, including the President, go out of their way to publicly praise the campaign, thereby taking a stand in the controversy that is unlikely to resonate with a majority of the company’s customer base.”
Fox News Digital’s Christina Dugan Ramirez contributed to this report.
