American Eagle and Opportunistic Marketing: What Are They Really Taking Advantage of?
This July, American Eagle launched its Fall 2025 campaign featuring a series of short video ads starring Sydney Sweeney under the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans, And Now You Can, Too!” The campaign’s primary 30-second ad has already garnered 4.3 million views on Youtube — part of a clear strategy to cement American Eagle’s status “as the #1 jeans brand for Gen Z.”
In a collection of reels and retro aesthetic edits set against a nostalgic backdrop of grainy footage, filtered soft light and analog tech, the campaign features Sweeney in soft, sexually suggestive positions. This includes the actress wiping grease on her back pockets after inspecting her Mustang engine, lying beside a German shepherd puppy on the floor while filming herself with a vintage camcorder, or posing in front of a retro film recorder, as if auditioning. It's flirty, sultry and intentionally referential. The aesthetic leans heavily on a curated nostalgic oversexualized image of Americana and old Hollywood. In these cases. think denim, trucks, natural beauty, “girl next door” charm.
In her Dr. Squatch body wash ads, Sweeney presents her sexuality as transactional. She uses her body as a tool to capture attention in exchange for consumer engagement. That same performance carries over to the American Eagle campaign, but with a more overt and provocative edge. In one ad, she stands upright and states, “My body’s composition is determined by my genes” as the camera lingers on her cleavage before she coyly instructs the viewer to look up in a flirtatious deflection that underscores how the gaze is both invited and scolded. In the case of this ad the message is to reinforce a carefully crafted tension of nostalgia for an old Hollywood. Think Marlene Monroe, Anne Nicole Smith, or Jayne Mansfield.
The most controversial ad of the campaign, though, gestures to Calvin Klein’s infamous 1980 denim campaign featuring a then-15-year-old Brooke Shields. In the original commercial, Shields is filmed struggling to lift her jeans over her hips, as she lays on the ground reciting to the camera: “The secret of life lies hidden in the genetic code.”
Fast forward to the American Eagle version, where Sweeny lies on the ground in a cropped denim jacket as the camera slides from her waist to her face. She seductively teases: “Genes are passed down from parent to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes (jeans) are blue.”
If the double entendre wasn’t obvious enough, another part of the video campaign makes it crystal clear: Sweeney, holding a paint bucket and roller, walks up to a wheat-pasted poster of herself to correct the tagline – crossing out the word genes, replacing it with jeans.
Credit The Australian
The Right Applauds, the Left Cringes, and the Algorithm Wins.
The campaign has stirred its fair share of arguments and criticisms. Conservative pundits praised the campaign for returning to “real” beauty, accusing the left of a “woke meltdown” and an inability to handle female sexiness. In response, the left criticized American Eagle’s tone-deaf sexualization and veiled references to eugenics. Right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly uploaded a segment entitled “Sydney Sweeney Brings Normal Back,” nodding to a nostalgia for white, blonde, old-Hollywood sex appeal. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance went so far as to say how he thought the Democrats would’ve learned to “be less crazy” and not “attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful.”
Unexpectedly on the left, Stephen Colbert downplayed the impact of the ad as cheeky playfulness, claiming that “…an ad featuring a white blonde woman means American Eagle could be promoting eugenics, white supremacy and Nazi propaganda. That might be a bit of an overreaction.”
But this isn’t just about beauty standards. In a country shaped by immigration and marred by a history of white supremacy, the campaign’s wordplay on genes evokes something darker: the soft rhetoric of eugenics, dressed up in denim and desirability. In the current political climate, that’s not just provocative, it’s incendiary.
Across the U.S., ICE raids and viral videos of masked agents arresting people off the street in broad daylight are stoking widespread fear. According to TRAC, 71% of people in ICE detention have no criminal conviction. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a surge in hate crimes since 2024, with white supremacist militias rallying against DEI programs and preaching an Aryan ideal – one that reveres the image of white Americans like Sweeney. Nazi flags and swatsikas have appeared at marches. Chants of "white genocide" are no longer fringe or a dark web reference.
The American political climate is tense to say the least. And amidst all this, brands are leveraging nostalgia and sex appeal to sell jeans, or perhaps to signal something more sinister. Tesla chimed in with a tone-deaf tweet, featuring a video of a denim-clad automated robot: “Our seat robot also has great jeans.” And of course, Donald Trump, upon learning Sweeney is a registered Republican in Florida, couldn’t resist weighing in: “If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.” At the very least, the ad has signaled something political.
Brands have forfeited neutrality. The American Eagle debacle underscores the growing influence of politics on consumer consciousness and political agency. More than ever, brands now play a political role as well.
From Aerie Real to Outrage Real: The Trend is Profit
Despite the controversy, or perhaps because of it, American Eagle’s stock (AEO) has surged. On the Monday following the campaign launch and Trump’s comments, shares of American Eagle jumped 23%. Controversy seems to be attracting dollars.
But brands didn’t always err on the side of political controversy, or bend to right-leaning political will. In 2014, American Eagle launched a campaign called Aerie Real with the mission to, “celebrate every shape, every curve, every story – just the way you are.” The campaign featured models with different body types and various disabilities. Fashion Magazine called it Aerie’s “most inclusive campaign to date.”
Lest we forget Kendall Jenner’s (notably problematic) 2017 Pepsi ad, where she hands a can to a police officer facing protestors, in an effort to unite the groups. Some brands made bigger strides: Starbucks responded to Trump’s Muslim ban by vowing to hire 10,000 refugees. Airbnb’s CEO Chesky tweeted, “Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone not allowed in the US. Stay[ed] tuned for more, contact me if urgent need for housing,” – in addition to airing a Superbowl ad titled We Accept. The ad featured a montage of people with different identities, overlaid with a message stating, “We believe no matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love or who you worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept.”
Then there was Victoria Secret’s 2021 revamp, responding to the #MeToo Movement by replacing the traditional “Angels” with more inclusive brand ambassadors to the VS Collective. The brand was atoning for its lack of inclusivity and impossible female beauty standards by hosting a runaway full of diverse models, including plus-size model Paloma Elsesser and former soccer player Megan Rapinoe. Only for the company to shrivel back to its old ways in 2024. Activism, whether misguided or not, was in.
Now, Airbnb’s activism has become less prominent. Tractor Supply, the American home apparel and improvement chain, withdrew from its diversity and inclusion roles and carbon emission goals, and ended its support for Pride events. Numerous companies have followed suit.
The 2010s was a time when inclusivity sold and big brands knew it, and corporate activism flourished. But the cultural winds have shifted. In a post-2024 climate marked by backlash to DEI, rising white nationalism, and anti-immigrant sentiment, conservatism is trending. And brands, ever trend-sensitive, are responding.
A recent Gallup poll reports a decline in centrist political identity, with more Americans identifying as either more liberal or more conservative. But this is not a balanced shift, and it flirts with a dangerous absence of common ground dialogue. The right’s resurgence has been aggressive, highly visible, reactionary and loud. As a result, many corporations have been tailing along. Marketing follows the money, not the morality.
Take Dunkin’ Donuts’ recent ad with actor Gavin Casalegno, which made yet another unnecessary pun on the word genetics. Why? Because rage bait works.
And while you could rightfully wonder what genetics have to do with a summer drink or why a denim jeans campaign targeting the Gen-Z girl’s back-to-school market is so full of the male gaze, the logic doesn’t matter. The outrage on social media lures the profits. Professor Mara Einstein, author of Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults, has long warned about this trend. Algorithms are designed to maximize anger and anxiety. And what we’re seeing now is a refined form of outrage marketing, shock advertising engineered to dominate the feed.
There are now variations of rage-baiting: “Black outrage,” “gentle outrage,” “strawman baiting.” Whatever the method, the goal is the same: provoke engagement, generate buzz, and hook the undivided attention of short attention span Gen-Zers and Millennials to drive sales.
American Eagle has succeeded in sparking this dynamic. The left is outraged by the casual invocation of eugenics language. The right, meanwhile, expresses outrage over the left’s outrage, dismissing it as hypersensitivity. The result? A manufactured culture war playing out in the comments section exactly as designed, sprinkled with some (maybe intentional) messages about white supremacy. American Eagle didn’t just ignore the incendiary legacy of eugenics, it commodified it. And in a marketing ecosystem driven by friction, the brand would care less. After all, controversy drives the clicks and where there are clicks there is profit.
Follow the Money: Who Buys the Fantasy?
When we observe American Eagle’s C-Suite and the likes of such large brand names, we see all too often that the decision-making lies in the hands of older white professionals. And even though American Eagle’s target customer is Gen-Z, there are few Gen-Z executives giving insight into the minds of their main audience.
So what’s troubling isn’t that American Eagle tapped into cultural nostalgia and familiar analog tech. Even progressive politicians like Zohran Mamdani have used retro aesthetics effectively in their campaigns. It becomes troubling when C-Suites with political nostalgia reference memories of whiteness, desirability, and genetic “legacy” without regard for what they’re evoking. These aren’t neutral references.
And we should ask, who is attracted to this ideal of beauty and whiteness? Adjunct professor and marketing strategist, Sam Ogborn, breaks it down: “66% of the people that are investing in the stock market are men. And not to mention 70% of the people who own stocks in the US are white. So, they saw Sydney Sweeney, their crush, and they pumped this stock into oblivion. So listen, if American Eagle wanted a short-term stock bump, they got it.”
Greed Is Good Again - But Gen Z Isn’t Buying It
Our current cultural moment bears a striking resemblance to the 1980s, the very era of the original Calvin Klein ad that American Eagle nods to. It was a decade marked by economic disparity, the AIDS Epidemic, conservative resurgence under Reaganomics, rampant deregulation, and culture wars all under the shadow of nuclear anxiety and militarization. A time of major uncertainty, fear, and division.
Perfect for the decade’s ethos, the 80s sentiment is masterfully captured by Gordon Gekko (based on the personalities of various financiers) in the 1987 film Wall Street, when he declared: “Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works.”
That same ethos seems to be resurfacing not just for Gen Z, but across a consumer culture shaped by corporate nostalgia, influencer marketing, and AI-optimized ad strategies. Today, “greed” isn’t just a Wall Street mantra, it’s a business model repackaged through TikTok campaigns, where brands blend irony, sexuality, and pseudoscience in pursuit of virality. C-suite executives are banking on provocative ambiguity to stir outrage and drive clicks. What they are overlooking however, is how often they could be missing the mark, misreading the values of a digital-savvy generation, along with older viewers increasingly disillusioned by corporate theater.
American Eagle’s ad may be a weather report for the culture, signaling who’s profiting from the storm and who’s left bracing for impact. But consumers, especially Gen Z, are not just passive viewers. This generation has already proven its ability to shift narratives. They build platforms for mutual aid, call out greenwashing and performative allyship, and organize digital boycotts that impact brand bottom lines. They’re also the generation most fluent in AI. And they’re certainly not putting up with eugenics dogwhistles in their jeans ads. They are building the very tools needed to discern the fake from the real. And ironically, the more digital the world becomes, the more Gen Z seems to crave something authentic.
So while brands pivot and post to maximize attention, there’s still a countercurrent rising. One that doesn’t center extremes, but clarity. Gen Z isn’t asking for neutrality. Gen Z wants meaning and veracity, and they’re not giving you their money without it.