Critics accused American Eagle's Sydney Sweeney campaign of invoking a long-disproven eugenics idea by linking genes to denim, yet executives remained unfazed. The company pursued celebrity-led marketing including a Sydney Sweeney campaign and a Travis Kelce Tru Kolors collaboration. Those efforts produced around 40 billion impressions and drove what executives called unprecedented customer acquisition, adding 700,000 customers over the summer. Limited-time apparel from the partnerships sold out, and executives described the initiative as a brand and business reset. Customer gains reportedly spanned every county in the U.S., signaling broad, national momentum for the Gen Z-focused apparel maker.
Not everyone was a fan of American Eagle's back-to-school campaign starring Sydney Sweeney, with some critics going as far as to claim the ads promoted the long-disproven theory of eugenics in drawing a connection between the "Euphoria" actor's "great" genes and choice of denim. Discussing the effort on a Q2 earnings call Wednesday, Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers didn't sweat the backlash.
More importantly for American Eagle, these marketing ploys have generated "unprecedented" new customer acquisition, with customer counts up 700,000 over the summer period. "The American Eagle Sydney Sweeney campaign was intended to be a brand and business reset, and it has," said Brommers. "To be clear, that consumer acquisition is coming from every single county in the U.S. This momentum is national, and it is pervasive."
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