Sydney Sweeney attends the 2024 Armani Beauty dinner photocall at Arsenale on August 31, 2024 in Venice, Italy. (Andreas Rentz / Getty Images)
By C. Douglas Golden September 6, 2025 at 1:00pm
The market has spoken. Wall Street agrees that American Eagle has a hit with its controversial Sydney Sweeney advertisement.
According to Fox Business, shares of the retailer spiked 25 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The reason? American Eagle’s second-quarter earnings report, which the company said had exceeded expectations, thanks to the campaign.
“The iconic fall denim campaign with Sydney Sweeney affirms we are the American jeans brand,” said Jay Schottenstein, CEO of American Eagle Outfitters.
“We saw record-breaking new customer acquisition and brand awareness cutting across age demographics and genders.”
The clothier also touted its partnership with Kansas City Chiefs star and Taylor Swift fiancée Travis Kelce as a reason for the brand’s success.
“Fueled by stronger product offerings and the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, we have seen an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales,” a statement authored by Schottenstein read.
“We look forward to building on our progress and the continued strength of our iconic brands to drive higher profitability, long-term growth and shareholder value.”
The campaign — which focused on Sweeney’s looks — debuted in July along with the tag, “Sydney Sweeney’s Got Great Jeans.”
Is American Eagle worth shopping at?
The ad campaign quickly became part of a cultural divide.
Conservatives, like author and former Fox News producer Kyle Becker, celebrated it as a return to traditional beauty as opposed to “woke advertising.”
Liberals, however, seized upon the double entendre of the tagline, arguing that it was a dog whistle for racism.
Newsweek said the ad had “drawn widespread backlash on social media and reignited conversations about racism, eugenics, and the historical exploitation of women in advertising.”
MSNBC producer Hannah Holland, meanwhile, said it “shows an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness” because Sweeney “embodies the near mythological girl-next-door beautiful but low-maintenance sexy femininity that dominated media in the 1990s and the early 2000s.”
Americans, for the most part, disagreed with this assessment.
YouGov has Sweeney data – 12% of Americans find it offensive.
The gender gap is bigger than the political gap on whether the ad is “offensive” (7% of men, 17% of women)
Men are also more likely to find the ad “clever” (49% of men, 31% of women). pic.twitter.com/SMQGsWM66S
— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) August 12, 2025
A YouGov survey issued several weeks after the campaign debuted found just 12 percent of respondents found it offensive.
This was compared to 39 percent who found it “clever” or 40 percent who said it was “neither.”
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture
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