Short excerpt from a Molly McPherson YouTube video transcript in which she critiques the American Eagle ad featuring Sydney Sweeney. McPherson argues the campaign intentionally provokes discussion and emotion — suggesting marketing teams ‘choreograph’ controversy to generate attention — and references discussing the topic on the BBC’s Fame Under Fire podcast.
Oh, because you were so sweet. I'll talk about Sydney Sweeney and that American Eagle ad. I just happened to finish an interview with the BBC's Fame Under Fire podcast. This was one of the topics that we talked about, but, you know, we talked about a lot of different topics. And I realized I'm becoming a bit of a one note media commentator because my answers are all the same. If you look at the Sydney Sweeney ad and the campaign was tying in her blue jeans with her blue eyes and blonde hair, and you think when they conceived this ad, it went through all those different people and nobody flagged the content, thinking it might cause outrage. When you walk into an American Eagle store, I mean, look at the customer base. I mean, they have numbers there. Are they worried about outrage online based on this campaign? Not likely. Doesn't matter if it's American Eagle or a Ryan Reynolds produced ad with Gwyneth Paltrow. It all comes down to this. Nothing is a coincidence. Everything is choreographed for a reason. There is a puppeteer who is designing a campaign, whether it's ad or pr, to get you to think about it, have an emotion about it, talk about it to other people, and talk about it with people online. Because in the end, it all comes down to this.
