Eric Siu breaks down why an American Eagle ad with Sydney Sweeney sparked online backlash over fascism claims, then went viral anyway. The stock price jumped, and the meme-driven attention worked like it did for Jaguar and Bud Light. Sometimes controversy is the best marketing.
American Eagle did this jeans commercial called Good Jeans, right? Basically saying she has good jeans and they have good jeans. It's like kind of a joke, right? What happened was they got a ton of backlash. And I was laughing about this because I don't know if I sent you this the other day, but there's all these people making TikToks. It's like, this is fascist. This is like, this is pure propaganda. This is like Nazism because it's the good jeans, right? This is like celebrating, like, you know what I mean? Like they're saying it's like a super like white supremacist type of commercial.
Oh, 'cause she's blonde?
Is she blonde? Yeah, she's white, right? But it's like, what are you guys talking about?
Does she have blue eyes? I'm assuming 'cause the head looks white. Yeah, she does.
But it's like, dude, that's not even the point. Like, it's kind of a fun wordplay on the word jeans, right? And then the Cobra Kai guy, Johnny Lawrence, he made an ad after wearing American Eagle. He's like, I also have good jeans, right? He's like, screw all this wokeism and screw all— and I'm just like, yeah, like the reason it popped is because a lot of Americans Are people are just kind of sick of seeing this whole, like, it's a good commercial. And then the way, the way American Eagle responded. So here's what they said, they had a cheeky backlash response over here. And I think they did a good job with this, right? So sometimes when people are, they're getting more views, I think they're trying to capitalize on it more. So it says here. All right. So I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital. And they work with a whole host of global companies or global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go To whom it may concern, we sincerely apologize for featuring Sydney Sweeney in our recent advertisement. In hindsight, we underestimated the combined impact of her blue eyes, blonde hair, and general hotness. Also, we did not realize how big her boobs would be. Our marketing team has been sent to denim sensitivity training. Thank you for your feedback. Please stop emailing us.
Yes. And what happened to their stock? It went up.
It went up by how much?
It looks like it went up around 20%.
There you go. I'm roughly estimating based on the ad. That's the power of a good ad, guys.
And it's still up. It started to contract a little bit, but you know what happened, right? It started getting pushed by all the meme stuff, all the Redditors.
Oh, did they?
Yeah, it started getting pushed. I don't know if it was actually the Reddit community like WallStreetBets, but CNBC was reporting that American Eagle's the next, the new meme because there was a few right before it and they just kept piling on and they were just making a ton of cash from them. Because before that it was, Nextdoor's a real estate company. Nextdoor boomed. I believe it was Kohl's. And then I believe American Eagle started getting into the meme craze. And dude, this is like, People's sensitivity can drive marketing in a bad way. And the perfect example of this is Jaguar, which you and I have talked about on this podcast episode. They went with the more sensitive route with their advertising, and they went with what they felt was more political based on what they felt people wanted. But when you look at their European sales in April 2025, they faced a 97.5% percent drop in car sales just based on because of their advertising. And it was partly because of their advertising, also partly because during the same period they wanted to focus on pushing full EV. And to give you the numbers, and this is all from AI Overview, I don't know what URL Google's pulling from, but it went from 1,961 previous sales that year or that month of that year to 49. And it just goes to show that Leaning into what may be a smaller percentage, but they tend to be louder wants, isn't always a necess— isn't always the right move with your marketing.
Look, I think it's nice to lean into social justice and all that, especially in 2020, right? You saw all the ads like Nike and I'm just not going to call it the ads, but it didn't really work for them, right? And then now, now what's happening is like, look, Jaguar Bud Light did this. And then you see that, I think a lot of people wanted that kind of social justice angle to work. At least in America, I think Americans have moved on. And that's why a lot of people, at least on Twitter, a lot of people are laughing about these ads. And then people on TikTok that are complaining about this fascism, guys, it's not fascism. It's just a good ad at the end of the day. And you and I are both people of color. Like, I don't see it as a racist ad.
Do you? No.
Guys, move on. Like, it's just a good ad. Let's deal with it. I'm happy they got more reach and I'm happy they grew. Yes.
