US fashion retailer American Eagle Outfitters I wanted to cause a sensation with his new advertising campaign with the 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney. The AD -Blitz contained “clever, even provocative language” and “was definitely pressed buttons,” the company’s Chief Marketing Officer told the company.
It has. The question now is whether some of the public reactions are autumn Denim campaign Produced is something American eagle intended.
With the title “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”, the campaign solved a debate about breed, western beauty standards and from The counter reaction To wake up American politics and culture. Most of the negative reception focused on videos that used the word “genes” instead of “jeans” known for the HBO series “Euphoria” and “White Lotus”.
Some critics looked at the pun, either unintentional or conscious, for Eugenik, a discredited theory in which humanity could be improved by selective breeding for certain characteristics.
Marcus Collins, assistant professor for marketing at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, said that the criticism could have been avoided if the ads showed models of various breeds that made the word “genes”.
“You can either say that this was ignorance, or that was laziness or say that this is intended,” said Collins. “One of the three is not good.”
Other commentators accused critics of having read too much into the message of the campaign.
“I love how the left collapse of the Sydney Sweeney display has only led to a beautiful white blond girl with blue eyes 1000x The exposure for her” good genes “” fox News host Megyn Kelly wrote about Tuesday X.
American Eagle did not respond to inquiries about comments from the Associated Press.
A snapshot from American Eagle
The ad flash comes as the youthful retailerHow many dealers wrestling with lazy consumer expenses and higher costs from tariffs. American Eagle reported this total amount The turnover had decreased 5% for his quarter in February April compared to a previous year.
One day after the announcement of SWEENEY as the youngest famous employee of the company, the American Eagle share closed by more than 4%. The stocks were volatile this week and acted by almost 2%on Wednesday.
According to Alan Adamson, co-founder of the marketing consulting company MetaForce, American Eagle, like many trendy clothing stamps, has to differentiate from other medium-effective chains with a famous face or say something nervous.
Adamson said the SWEENEY campaign shares a descent with Calvin Klein Jeans ads from 1980 with a 15-year-old Brooke Shields: “You want to know what’s coming between me and my Calvins?” Some TV networks rejected the stains to radiate because the age of the double and shields was suggestive.
“It is the same game book: a very hot model that says provocative things in an interesting way,” said Adamson.
Advertising boards, Instagram and snapchat
Craig Brommers, Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers, told the Retail Brew’s website last week that “Sydney is the greatest income in the history of American Eagle”, and the company would promote the partnership in a way that corresponds.
The campaign contains videos from SWEENEY, which wear sloppy jeans in various environments. It will appear on 3-D advertising boards on the Times Square and elsewhere and speak to the users Snapchat and Instagram and in an AI-capable test function.
American Eagle also plans to start a limited Sydney Jean in a limited edition in order to raise awareness of domestic violence. The sales proceeds go to a non -profit crisis advice service.
In a press release, the company found that “Sweeney’s girls from next door charm and main characters – paired with their ability not to take too seriously, is the trademark of this brave, playful campaign.”
Jeans, genes and their many meanings
In a video SWEENEY goes to an American Eagle advertising table from her and the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has great genes”. It crosses “genes” and replaces it with “jeans”.
But what critics found most troubling was a teaser video in which Sweeney says: “Genes are passed on by parents to descendants and find that characteristics such as hair color, personality and even eye color occur frequently. My jeans are blue.”
The video was published on the Facebook page of American Eagle and other social media channels, but is not part of the campaign.
While someone has good genes, sometimes used as a compliment, the sentence also has dark connotations. Eugenik achieved popularity in America of the early 20th centuryAnd Nazi Germany accepted it to carry out Adolf Hitler’s plan for an Aryan master race.
Civil rights activists have found signs of this The “big replacement theory”, A racist ideology that claims a conspiracy to reduce the influence of the whites.
Shalini Shankar, a cultural and linguistic anthropologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said she had problems with the “genes” of American Eagle compared to “jeans” because she tightens a limited concept of beauty.
“American eagles, I think, would like to rename itself for a certain kind of white privileged Americans,” said Shankar. “And that is the aspiring picture that you want to circulate for people who want to wear your denim.”
A cultural change in advertising
Many critics compared the American Eagle display in 2017 with a misstep from Pepsi when she published a TV display in which the Model Kendall Jenner offered a can of soda to a policeman while supposedly from a photo shoot to join a lot of demonstrators.
The spectators mocked the position to trivialize the protests against policies from blacks. Pepsi apologized and pulled the ad.
The demonstrations, which followed the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis after 2020, urged many US companies to make their advertising better, the consumers of all breeds.
Some marketers say that they have observed another change since President Donald Trump has returned to office Abolish all Federal DEI programs and guidelines.
Jazmin Burrell, founder of the Brand advisory agency Lizzie Della Creative Strategies, said she was noticing more and signs while shopping with her cousin that she contains white models.
“I can see that we are returning to a world in which diversity is not really the standard maintenance maintenance in advertising,” said Burrell.
The past and future of American Eagle
American Eagle was praised in the past for a variety of marketing, including the creation of a denim -hijab in 2017 and the offer of its Aerie -Dessous brand in a variety of sizes. A year ago, the company published a Limited Edition -Denim collection with tennis star Coco Gauff.
The retailer has an ongoing program for diversity, equity and inclusion, which is mainly geared towards employees. Two days before the Sweeney campaign’s announcement, American Eagle appointed the latest recipients of his scholarship prize for employees who advance initiatives against racism, equality and social justice.
Marketing experts offer mixed opinions on whether the attention will be related to “good jeans” Good for business.
“You probably thought that this would be your moment”, Myles Worthington, the founder and CEO of Marketing and creative agency Worthi. “But that does the opposite and deeply distorts your brand.”
Melissa Murphy, marketing professor at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, said she liked certain parts of the campaign, but hoped that she would be expanded to present people alongside Sweeney for the “Sake of the Brand”.
Other experts say that the sum is good, even if it is not uniformly positive.
“If you try to follow all the rules, you will make many people happy, but they will fail,” said Adamson. “The rocket will not take off.”
