The chief executive of American Eagle Outfitters resisted pressure on social media to pull its provocative ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney — telling his charges to remain calm in the face of accusations that the brand was promoting racist and sexist tropes, according to a report.
In the weeks that followed, the campaign proved to be a hit — bringing in almost a million new customers to American Eagle between July and September, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The company’s stock surged and sales of its clothing rose.
“You can’t run from fear,” the teen retailer’s CEO Jay Schottenstein told the Wall Street Journal. “We stand behind what we did.”
Sweeney, the actress who has starred in hit TV series such as “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus,” was showcased in American Eagle ads wearing the company’s signature denim line.
“Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” the ad campaign read.
In one video, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
Some critics online argued that the promotional campaign’s double entendre was racist.
But Schottenstein rejected claims that American Eagle was pushing “eugenics” and racial superiority — and noted that his mother-in-law grew up in Nazi Germany and witnessed Jewish synagogues being burned to the ground.
“I’m very conscious of that term,” Schottenstein, 71, told the Journal. If anyone from the company thought the campaign would offend anyone, “we never would’ve done it.”
The ad campaign was praised by President Donald Trump following news that Sweeney is a registered Republican.
“Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He said that his goal as head of the company is to “put a pair of jeans on every tuchis in the United States.”
According to Schottenstein, the company gave a small team the task of monitoring social media posts.
He told the Journal that American Eagle also hired a firm that polled customers about the ad campaign.
Weeks after the Sweeney campaign was launched, American Eagle also rolled out a marketing blitz featuring Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, who had just recently announced his engagement to pop singer Taylor Swift.
Susan Cantor, the CEO of Sterling Brands, a consumer branding firm, told the Journal that American Eagle managed to avoid a backlash and even gained financially from the Sweeney collaboration because the company didn’t back down.
“By sticking to their guns, they gained customers,” Cantor told the Journal.
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