The internet is buzzing with lots of thoughts and emotions on the newest campaign launched by retailer American Eagle featuring actress Sydney Sweeney. While there are definitely some consumers who love the campaign, the backlash from the campaign is what is dominating the narrative.
There are several complaints with the campaign. Some consumers are troubled that an ad marketing women’s jeans has a sexual tone that seems to be targeted for the “straight male gaze.” Another issue is that there seems to be a disconnect between the cause the brand is connecting to. A butterfly motif appears on the back pocket of “The Sydney Jean” representing domestic violence awareness, a cause Sweeney is passionate about.
In addition, 100% of the proceeds of “The Sydney Jean” will be donated to Crisis Text Line, a non-profit offering 24-hour mental health support to anyone who needs it. However, the sexual nature of the ads in the campaign appear at odds with the community the brand is aiming to align with and support.
Yet, the biggest controversy of the campaign comes from messaging many are touting as being rooted in White supremacy.
The text of the primary add includes a play on the words genes and jeans, which for many feels like it is a lot more than just selling jeans. The text of the voiceover says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My genes are blue.”
The visual for the ad is a pan over of Sweeney wearing only blue jeans and flashing her blue eyes at the end.
Another visual from the campaign shows a billboard of Sweeney in blue jeans, with the copy “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” Later in the ad, a Sydney lookalike crosses out the word “genes” and writes “jeans.”
Critics of the ad feel that because of the play and usage of the word “genes” – it is implying that the type of genes Sydney Sweeney have are great, superior and preferred to other types of genes that aren’t like Sydney’s – a thin, white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes.
On one Reddit thread one commenter wrote, “I mean it is a direct homage to a pretty vile Calvin Kline ad that sexualized a 14 year old Brooke Shields. But the main reason people don’t like the ad is it has some pretty nasty racial implications. Are either of these Sweeney’s fault no, but I can think the ad was in poor taste and blame the idiot marketing team.”
Another wrote, “It’s a bad look for a classically attractive, blue eyed blonde haired woman to brag about how she has good genes, and ‘good genes’ implies the existence of bad genes.”
On TikTok, commenters had even more pointed negative responses, including “nobody is getting their pants from their parents. This is a direct eugenics ad. As in your face as you could get.” Another commentor added, “I’m trying to work out whether or not the sexism is more prominent, or the white supremacy. Genuinely who let this happen.”
As marketers around the world are watching the backlash unfold, here are some important lessons to keep in mind from this sage that will help you increase your effectiveness.
1. Embrace This Golden Rule Of Marketing
Inclusive marketing is all about acknowledging the many ways in which consumers are different, intentionally choosing who your brand will serve and then incorporating those consumers throughout all areas of your marketing mix.
Based on the ads in the campaign, American Eagle doesn’t appear to be practicing inclusive marketing. That is totally its right to do so. No brand has an obligation to serve every identity.
Like inclusive marketing, smart customer acquisition also requires a brand to to be judicious about choosing which types of consumers you will serve.
From this Sydney Sweeney campaign, it appears that American Eagle chose who their were targeting: White men and women.
While brands have every right to choose who they want to serve, they also need to be prepared for the reactions of people who are being excluded – intentionally or not.
While American Eagle may win some new customers with this campaign, they are also losing a lot of customers. In response to some of the new campaign posts on Instagram, one consumer shared, “My AE order just arrived today. I’m heading to the store tomorrow to return the whole thing. This campaign is abhorrent.”
Another wrote, “Y’all were my fav place to buy jeans…won’t be shopping here anymore.” And another commented, “I’ve been wearing nothing but AE jeans for 15+ years but this campaign is so off I’ll find other jeans to wear now.”
Key Lesson:
Choose which identities your brand wants to feel like they belong with your brand. Accept that consumers you don’t choose to focus on may decide to spend their money elsewhere.
2. Use Your Power For Good
Marketing has much more power than getting consumers to buy your product. Marketing also has the power to influence the way people feel about both themselves and other people.
A few years back, Unilever recognized that power and decided to remove the word “normal” from all packaging and campaigns for all their beauty and personal products. The brand recognized that people who needed products that weren’t labeled “normal” were negatively impacted by that experience.
Thus, if you are a person looking at the new American Eagle campaign, and you don’t have some of the genetically handed down “good gene” traits of Sydney Sweeney, that could negatively impact the way you view yourself. Along those same lines, calling specific traits of genes good, could also cause people to look at other people who don’t have those genes in a lesser light.
Key Lesson:
Marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The messages you communicate both directly and indirectly have power that goes well beyond how people respond to your product. Responsible marketing supports your brands growth. Lean into it.
3. Intent isn’t the marker for success.
We do not know the intentions of the American Eagle team when they made this ad. I reached out to a spokesperson for comment, and have yet to hear back.
We do know, from a post from Ashely Schapiro, American Eagle’s vice president marketing, media, performance and engagement, that the campaign did have a double meaning behind it.
In a LinkedIn post celebrating the team’s efforts for what the created, and giving a peek into the creative process and decisions, Schapiro wrote, “The star power of Sydney and the double meaning behind the campaign has a culture shaping power beyond anything I could have ever imagined being a part of – just check your social feeds.”
We may never know with certainty what the intent was with the double meaning referenced unless American Eagle tells us. Generally, when campaigns have this level of backlash, an official apology comes, which often includes the sentiment, “our intention wasn’t to offend.”
Whether or not that happens, it is important to remember that intention is never the marker of success. How the campaign is received is the true marker marketers should judge their effectiveness by.
And while there are consumers who love and appreciate this campaign, there are many who hate it and feel it causes harm.
Key takeaway:
Focus on impact, not your intentions. If what you produce doesn’t land the way you intend, then there is opportunity for improvement.
4. Don’t Guess About How Your Campaign Will Be Received
It is not known if American Eagle tested its campaign concept or any portion of the campaign with consumers before making such massive investment to make sure it gets seen.
Most commentary and news about the campaign is entirely focused on the controversy surrounding it. There are questions swirling around wondering how a brand could have produced a campaign that would garner such strong negative reaction.
Smart marketers don’t leave the success of campaigns they are heavily investing in up to chance. Good marketers take the time to not only get feedback from a broad diversity of their ideal customers to get an understanding of how they respond to campaigns, but they also take the time to understand how the campaigns might be perceived overall, even outside of their ideal customer circle.
If the intention of the campaign was not to offend, then included in the development process should have been voices to offer culturally intelligent insights, or at the very least to weigh in on how the campaign might be perceived once it is live.
Key takeaway:
Include people who have the identities of the ideal customers you are trying to reach in your creative process from start to finish. Test your campaigns with your intended audience before you launch it.
5. Responses in crisis situations should be thoughtful, rather than rushed.
In the midst of all the backlash around the Sydney Sweeney campaign, American Eagle published a post on Instagram showcasing a racially ambiguous model wearing a pair of jeans, with the caption, “Denim on denim on denim…on denim. AE has great jeans.” The brand also has removed the video campaign that received the most complaints from their social media accounts.
It is unclear if the brand posted this to appear as if including a model with different genes was a part of this campaign. But for many people, the move just feels rushed, and like the brand is trying to cover its tracks given the accusations around race with the core of its campaign.
To make matters even more confusing, the caption features lyrics from a Beyonce song titled Levii’s jeans. The entertainer currently has a campaign with American Eagle competitor Levi’s.
One consumer responded, “does she have great jeans like Sydney Sweeney too or is this just damage control?” Another wrote, “This move was actually worse…it looks like an after thought…putting a band-aid on a gushing wound.”
Key takeaway:
Don’t respond to crisis with hasty moves. You might make the situation worse, especially if your response appears inauthentic. Also, the use of racially ambiguous models often doesn’t have the intended impact brands think it does.
This article was originally published on forbes.com.
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