CNN’s front page clickbait headline was reworded as the following for the story itself:
What did we learn from the Sydney Sweeney jeans drama? | CNN:
“This is intentional. This is pointed, and you’re calling out to the consumers that you hope to attract here,” said Cheryl Overton, a long-time brand strategist and communications executive. “If American Eagle is really out there trying to target Americans to the right or to the far right, so be it. If that’s who the product is designed for now, that is their right as a company to do that. But you have to know that folks are educated, folks are nuanced, and folks are willing to call brands out.”
This is such a stupid take that one can hardly believe that it gained any traction. American Eagle’s CEO and Chairman of the Board is Jewish. The idea the Sydney Sweeney ad was a Nazi dogwhistle is ridiculous.
What it does do, however, is mark a return to an age when hot models like Cindy Crawford or Brooke Shields sold products. The reemergence of that ethos puts the lie to people, predominantly on the left, who have espoused a “beauty is everything” (fat, trans, bizarre-looking) worldview. Turns out people like to look at hot people.
If I’m on the American Eagle marketing team, I’m high-fiving and buying rounds of beer. This rather benign ad campaign has achieved far more traction than it deserves. It’s been anything but a disaster.