Republican leaders publicly defended American Eagle's controversial campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, coinciding with measurable changes in consumer spending. Consumer Edge uses credit and debit card data from over 93 million US cardholders to estimate company revenues. Initial data showed increased buzz and web traffic but no immediate spending lift; spending growth had been consistently higher among Democrats since the July 23 campaign launch. After updated data, spending among Republicans began rising around August 5, overtook Democrats on August 9, and climbed sharply through August 10 while Democratic contributions dipped modestly. The reversal suggests shifting consumer alignment and increased Republican engagement with the brand.
In an August 11 blog post highlighted in Adweek based on data that lagged by about a week, Michael Gunther, head of insights and VP at Consumer Edge, noted the "media frenzy" over the ads-which some allege promote eugenics and are oversexualized-caused a spike of buzz and website traffic for American Eagle. But at the time, Gunther concluded, it had not "yet translated into increased spending" for the brand or boosted its market share.
Since the campaign had launched on July 23, YoY spending growth, meaning a credit card was used to spend more at American Eagle than last year (or to make a purchase there when it hadn't last year), had consistently been higher for Democrats. On a graph, they looked like two sawtooth lines, with the Republican line roughly parallel but always below the Democrat line.
Around August 5, however, spending started increasing more steadily among Republicans, and on August 9, spending growth among Republicans overtook Democrats, and the rise continued to shoot upward on August 10 (the last day for which data is available), while it dipped only modestly for Democrats.
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