.jpg)
The Unstoppable Marketer®
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt bring you quick marketing and entrepreneurial tips, tricks, and trends for DTC business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. These are lessons they've learned through the years of being right in the thick of scaling dozens of businesses. Whether you have an established business looking to grow, just starting your business journey, or trying to become a digital marketer, this marketing podcast will not let you down.
The Unstoppable Marketer®
EP. 134 Jeans, Genes, and Genius Marketing: Decoding American Eagle's Viral Campaign
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of the Unstoppable Marketer podcast, hosts discuss the controversial American Eagle campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney and its impact on brand visibility. They analyze the marketing strategy, drawing parallels to historical advertising tactics and exploring the potential shift in advertising trends. The hosts also delve into the broader implications for businesses seeking to capture attention in saturated markets.
Sydney Sweeney Marketing Phenomenon
Speaker 1This is rooted in history. If you go back to Marilyn Monroe she played a big part in the diamond industry you can kind of compare a Sidney Sweeney to a Marilyn Monroe type person. This is rooted in business history. In the United States they were using Marilyn Monroe in ads. She sold things really well. Sidney Sweeney appears to be doing the exact same thing right now.
Speaker 2Yo, what's going on everybody. Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, is Mark Goldhart. Every time we start and I introduce him, he's always on his phone. What's up? It's how it goes, it's as on brand, as me saying yo, what's going on everybody? I don't think I've missed a single episode where I haven't said that. I would say it's as on brand, as you pretending not to pay attention to my introduction.
Speaker 1I am paying attention though.
Speaker 2I know you are. How are you? I'm paying attention. I'm great Good, I'm well. You have a good weekend.
Speaker 1I did yeah, it was fun Took the kids up to the mountains. We got home and my two-year-old girl, anna, started bawling like homesick for the mountains. Yeah, she started crying and we said you not want to go home? And she said, no, start crying again you want to go? Camping and she said yes.
Speaker 2I used to be that kid like anytime I'd leave for wouldn't get homesick, I'd get like homesick for the vacation. Yeah, it's like as we drive home I'd just be like in the back of the car crying, but like not letting anybody know that I was like sad about it. Probably like way too old to do that too.
Speaker 1She did spend the first like year of her life going on more camp trips than most people go on, like in a lifetime, yeah, in a lifetime, yeah.
Speaker 2You guys run the road a lot, so there's probably some deep-rooted subconscious stuff there.
Speaker 1But yeah, it was fun, it was great. And then doing a fishing trip next week Nice, I'll be working though.
Speaker 2Nice Very nice. Well, I was in Bear Lake and a funny story is my parents get. This is going to sound like I'm ungrateful, so I'm just going to pitch it here, but I just think it's a funny story.
Speaker 1First world problem.
Speaker 2It's a very first world problem. So hate as much as you want, I'm telling you right now. It's a stupid thing for me to say, but it's a funny story. So my mom, my parents, rent a house for us every year for the family to get together. It's like our big family vacation for the family to get together. It's like our big family vacation.
Speaker 2And she like, slowly, normally we're used to staying in Airbnb. That provides everything for you you get the towels, you get the blankets, you get the cleaning, the, the, the wifi, the AC, the, everything you know like, you have access to it. That's generally how Airbnbs work, yes, and she slowly tells us like, hey, we're doing something different this year. It's a beach house, it's really cool. We're all like, really excited. And then she's like it's really old, though, you know like normally we stay in something new or nicer. It's like you know in like the 60s or something. We're like, okay, that's, that's fine.
Speaker 2And then the next week she's like oh, like, um, they don't have a cleaning service, so, so we're going to have to clean the whole house at the end. And we're like, oh, okay, that's fine, like we can do that, like we'll just have to stay a little bit later. That's fine, they save a little bit of money. Cool. She's like oh, also like they don't want you to use any of their towels. Okay, so we need to bring, like our beach towels. And then next week it's like also like can you bring your own sheets To that way, like we don't do like a bunch of laundry and then you're not sleeping their sheets, and I'll also bring your own hand towels for the like for the bathroom, like when you wash your hands, and we're like we're just moving there, I guess.
First World Problems: Vacation Tales
Speaker 2Well, oh, bring your own. So it's like every week it's like something like new, like new, we're kind of like what's going on? And finally she breaks it to us, like three weeks before, like oh, also, this place doesn't have ac. And we're like, oh, okay, it's 90 degrees, you know, super sunny. And so I I start to tell her, like hey, I, I like, do you have? I hate to ask this, but like does this place have wi-fi? Like I, I need to know. If that's why I'm gonna have to work a little bit.
Speaker 2She's's like oh yeah of course I love Wi-Fi. I'm like, yeah, but so far I'm bringing my own hand towels, I'm bringing my own sheets. This place doesn't have AC, like I need to understand if this has running water and if this has Internet yeah because, basically, I feel like I'm camping at this point, you know? So what?
Speaker 1but you are would tell me.
Speaker 2Tell me, yeah, because basically I feel like I'm camping at this point, you know. So what? But you are, would tell me. Tell me, she's like it has Wi-Fi, trust me. So the very and this is like three weeks before, so the very, like night before I'm like mom, did you find out if this has Wi-Fi? Like I have several calls I need to be on. This week kind of got packed more than I thought it was gonna be and she's like, okay, I'll ask. And she texts me back like an hour later and this is it, like 9 pm the night before. She's like no, it does not have Wi-Fi. So then I had to scrounge up a Starlink as you know, scrounge up luckily last minute, on KSL, which were not great for you work.
Speaker 1But not great. Yeah, probably their router was.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't know how far away were you from the router? Very close, yeah, good, there might have been some obstruction.
Speaker 1I don't know how far away were you from the router Very close.
Speaker 2Yeah, I said I could. There might have been some obstruction.
Speaker 1I don't know, I had zero. I have zero problem ever with mine.
Speaker 2But yeah, first world problems. But it was just a very funny like it was like this snowball effect of Every week we heard something new. That did you know but it was but surprising, not surprisingly.
Speaker 1It was my guys just bringing your tent because we're not allowed to be in the house.
Speaker 2actually, I actually almost brought my Haven tent.
Speaker 1Like oh, maybe this would be cooler. Probably would have been nicer.
Speaker 2Anyways, night one was a misery. It was so hot night one, but then every other night after that was like actually kind of chilly. So because we figured out how to open up the windows, the right way and when to do it and all that kind of stuff. But it was a blast. Thank you, mom and dad. My first world problems.
Speaker 2There you go that's so funny um any recaps we want to do. We're coming on the end of summer. I know july is generally for most brands a very challenging time of year well, yeah, I mean just from a once again. We talk about this all the time. Women make like 85 percent of the purchasing purchasing in household and so if you have a brand that is catered to selling to women, it's gonna be harder. It is harder women tend to.
Speaker 1Probably has been for the last well and depending on what demographic of woman you're talking about, but we're referencing, more so moms, especially women with children.
Speaker 2Like July, you're traveling hot month you're outside, kids are home, you're not on your phone as much, so school is back in session. In like, for me, I think, 15 days, 16 days. So, wow, you had a couple more weeks of this, ladies and gentlemen, so stay the course, hit the back to school if you, if you haven't already, yeah back to school. Back to cool, back to school yeah um don't do that. I don't know if I have anything else logan um, is that good enough for an update?
Speaker 1yeah, it's probably good enough, okay, I mean, there's some features like google had an update, but we'll go over that next week, okay. And uh, we are testing some of this tracking software that's supposedly going to improve tracking.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, if it works, we will talk about it more.
Speaker 1But I'm sure a lot of you guys, if you're in the marketing space or if you own a store, have heard of it Anonymous tracking software. We'll see if it works.
Speaker 2You want to shout out the name?
Speaker 1Nope, not yet, not until we get some winners, winners. And then, if we get some winners, we'll for sure shout them out.
Speaker 2We just launched a new product, not to promote ourselves, but I'm going to oh quizzy, yeah quizzy. We just launched a new quiz app in the shopify app store. So, uh, quiz app meaning like, when somebody lands on your website, you can ask them questions that will direct them to their ideal product based on their preferences.
Speaker 1Yes, so quizzes are awesome for brands that you know skin care, health and wellness I think ai has the ability because it's using AI for these product recommendations based off of some, you know, user data points. But I think the beauty of AI is that it could personalize and really, in a way, make online shopping or experiences more human.
Speaker 1For sure, copying your experience is more human, for sure, and by more human, it's just like it gives somebody the opportunity to interact with it and find what they're looking for in a much more intuitive way, rather than drop-downs and menus. So I think the future is going to look slightly different, with conversion rate optimization, and website design even will start shifting because of AI.
Speaker 1Yeah, but yeah, quizzy is great. We'll talk about that in, like CRO actually, and how there's some other software out there that does some similar things that if you have it on your store it might benefit you to listen.
Marketing Updates and New Quiz App
Speaker 2Yeah, we're going to start testing out on all of our brands so we'll have more updates, but that's a fun little update in the life of the bestie brands that we operate. Yes, sir, this week's discussion hot topic you're going to be. It's a week behind but I still think it's going to be.
Speaker 1It's not a week behind, I mean, it's like today.
Speaker 2Well, what I mean when they listen to it. Oh yeah. Yes, because we're a week, because we're Today is the 29th.
Speaker 1We could just release it earlier.
Speaker 2We could, but we won't do that to Grayson, so, but nonetheless, I think it'll still be relevant, right? So it's all about the. There is a lot of controversy right now over America's. Would you call her America's sweetheart, darling Sydney Sweetie, I have no idea. Would you do that? No, nomadic says no.
Speaker 1I don't know what she is.
Speaker 2She's like the hot snot for the women actress space right now.
Speaker 1Well, what's funny about her? We're talking about Sydney Sweeney. I don't know if we've said her name yet.
Speaker 2I thought I did, did I not? Sydney, sweeney and the American?
Speaker 1Eagle campaign. What I don't understand about her is I've never seen her in anything.
Speaker 2I actually don't know if I have either. Really quickly, let's just look this up she's been in some rom-coms, I think right. Sydney, sweeney.
Speaker 1Let's look at her IMDb. I don't know what she's famous for.
Speaker 2Oh, she's famous for Euphoria. Is that what it is? Yeah, yes, that was a HBO. I never saw it. Kind of a dark show, right. I've heard it's like, yeah, like it's very intense. I believe that's what I've heard. That's probably where she got her. So my question, though, is like she's not Known for the. And White Lotus as well. Hands Made Till. Those are the three main things that she's known for in IMDb. Okay, but, she's been in, oh Anyone but you.
Speaker 1That's the rom-com with our guy, but she's kind of turned into this like the all-American girl next door kind of.
Speaker 2But not really the girl next door, because she kind of has like embraced her, like sexuality.
Speaker 1I just don't know how to define her, because she's not like a supermodel no, but she's kind of becoming that right.
Speaker 2So what's happening? It started with dr squatch, right, dr squatch recently had a pretty controversial campaign where she was in a bathtub um promoting their shampoo or soap or something like that. And then there came this. So many people's, like so many comments, were like what I'd give to be the bath water, and then they turned her bath water into soap. They made like 40 000 units of it, yeah, and or 4 000 units of it or something like that, yeah, and they made. It was only like, they only like netted forty thousand dollars, but the views of it and like how, how many?
Speaker 2people talked about it went bananas like, but they almost one of the by far the most talked about marketing campaign of the year, in my opinion, was the dr squash and they only sold 4 000 units of it, but they sold a ton more product because of it right look that up in particle. So so, so, let's, let's talk about particle let's talk about this, um, this campaign.
Speaker 2so essentially the campaign is American Eagle is promoting jeans like their new jeans and I want to say, starting on the six days ago it was their new jeans that look old yeah the new jeans that look like jeans we wore when we were in high school or middle school Super baggy, weathered weathered, yeah, faded, I think.
Speaker 1I think faded is the correct term.
Speaker 2So she Faded jeans, she. The slogan is Sydney Sweeney has good jeans Right. And the video is accomplishing two things. Number one, it is very much showcasing the jeans that she is wearing and very much showcasing her jeans, j jeans, j jeans for these, g jeans for her physique.
Speaker 1What did you just draw in the air? Was that a DNA?
Speaker 2that was meant to be like a line? Isn't that like the symbol for curves?
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah oh.
Speaker 2So yeah, it's, it's. It showcases you're telling me that's not the dna sequence I think it's a good picture, but it fits for both what I'm trying to do, right. So, anyways, sydney suny has good genes and it has sparked a ton of controversy yes, it has and they've been dropping like a new video on it every other day or something like that. They've they filmed like the and these videos are maybe only like was it meant to be controversial.
Speaker 2It had to have been, but I think so because even the uh, if I remember right uh do you want to know.
Speaker 1My hot take is I don't think it was meant to be controversial at all it may not be Hold on.
Speaker 2I saw I mean I did, on the very first video. I saw that the founder of American Eagle. American Eagle was like this is going to rub people the wrong way, or he tweeted that out.
Speaker 1The founder. Is he in the company anymore?
Speaker 2I don't know if it was the founder or if it was the CEO, like he was saying it was the person within the company saying, hey, this is about to rub people the wrong way, like he kind of announced it.
Speaker 2Really, yeah, so I think that they knew, interesting that it was going gonna be like the controversial piece that's happened now, where people are like this is racist, and I Don't know if they thought that was gonna be the case. I I wonder if maybe they thought it was more so gonna be because it was overly sexualized, potentially, but I don't know. It's a good question.
Speaker 1Overly sexualized from America. I mean, we're talking about American Eagle, like what are we talking about here?
Speaker 2Well, here's the thing. A lot of these Like American.
Speaker 1Eagle, like the store with like Half naked people all on the wall.
Speaker 2Well, you're thinking Abercrombie? Yeah, but American Eagle did it too. They totally followed it, not to the extent that Abercrombie and Hollister. So what a lot of these people who I don't think Realize in the comments Is like nothing over sexualized people more than like Hollister and Abercrombie Like this was like table stakes back then Nothing over sexualized people more than just like early 2000s pop culture.
Speaker 1Totally Like we're talking Britney Spears.
Speaker 2So this is nothing like it might be new for. American Eagle in the last five to Ten years. But like, yeah, you're a hundred percent right.
American Eagle's Controversial Campaign Analysis
Speaker 1Like like in the early 2000s, like look at the pop stars Versus Taylor Swift oh yeah, a hundred percent, like I mean, what do we?
Speaker 2So the question is Was this Take?
Speaker 2I'm not saying Taylor Swift isn't pretty, I'm just saying she's not what you, she's not sexualized in the same way she doesn't show off her body in the same kind of way people don't look at her the same way they looked at a Britney Spears or a Madonna so let's pull back, take away the political side of things. Was this a good campaign for American Eagle? Initial gut check, gut check without knowing if they sold anything? Yeah, of course it was. And why, like why would you say of course it was?
Speaker 1well, are we taking morality out of all this? Yes, of course. So how honest can I be? Can I just honest?
Speaker 2I would hope you would be.
Speaker 1Okay, let's just. I'll just be honest here. My son listens to this. Sorry, Jude. Yeah, how old is Jude?
Speaker 2Oh, he's 10. You can say it.
Speaker 1Okay, well, anyways, let's be honest. Grandma Peggy also listens to this. What is the oldest industry in the world? They say you know what they say? No, I guess he doesn't know what they say. They say it's sex. So sex sells, sure? Um, that's just proven time and time again. We all know that no one wants to talk about it, but it's like, obviously that is something that people are trying to either subliminally sneak in or explicitly put in to their a lot of their campaigns, especially with clothing.
Speaker 1Um, sydney Sweeney is. Everyone loves her right now and it's a lot of that has to do with her curves.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Like we're talking like the Marilyn Monroe type craze, sure so of the I think that was the 50s, 60s, um, so yeah, it was a good move, because they're just getting the hot chick that everyone thinks is hot right now yeah it's not like rocket. I mean, I don't want to like spend so much time analyzing it from a perspective of, like, how genius it is. It's like they're just grabbing the hottest chick. Who's considered the hottest chick right now?
Speaker 1it maybe wasn't this big genius and paying her to be like oh, get in our jeans and then we'll reference your body, sure, through jeans? Yeah, I don't think they were trying to be controversial and, like the white, you know people are trying to say it's a call out for like white supremacy and stuff.
Speaker 2Obviously, that's not what it is.
Speaker 1It's just that she's a curvy woman and that's what people know her for. Hence the Dr Squatch thing.
Speaker 2So I did some digging the same way, I did some digging. So, yeah, it's a good move because we all know that works the Dr Squatch thing. So I did, I did some digging the same the same way, I did some digging.
Speaker 1Uh, so like yeah, it's a good move because we all know that works Like that's. That's something that has worked.
Speaker 2It's been taught forever, forever that yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Um, whether we agree with it or not, the sex selling side of things.
Speaker 1Is that fair enough, everybody? I think it's moral or not, whatever like it is the truth.
Speaker 2Yeah, sure, at least there's data behind it. That's when I say truth. When we, when we talk truth, we're not talking about, like you know is god.
Speaker 1We're not talking about, like our truth.
Speaker 2We're talking about, we're talking about two plus two equals four data data yeah correlation, causation, so so one thing we know um about sales is there's something that always comes before sales and we've had somebody on our podcast say this before Actually Maddox's dad in the background here but Alex MacArthur has come on the podcast and he says sales follows search. That's a big thing that he says, and it's a search, indicates interest.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2It's the first indication that sales will will come right. It's the same thing that, like when you're running ads, clicks sales, follow clicks right you're not going to get sales if you're not getting views and clicks most likely okay.
Speaker 1So and, by the way, sydney. I think she's pretty popular with the female crowd too uh, I don't know not all of them, but yeah I don't think she's unpopular. At least she might be now with some of them like we're getting a little older, but it appears that she's not well, yeah, she's in some of these rom-coms she's not like this huge lightning she's getting cast in movies that women watch.
Speaker 2So I would agree with what you're saying so so anyways, the uh search trends for american eagle.
Speaker 2So, as you know, if any. For, for those of you who don't understand this scale kind of thing, uh, it's just kind of like on a on a one to 100 scale of how often you're being searched, that doesn't mean you're you're, you know. If you're at a hundred that doesn't mean you were searched a hundred times that day. That just means like your growth has grown significantly. Right, american Eagle, for the last 90 days, is sitting at a scale of 25. Okay, the moment they launch this campaign it jumps up from like 25 to 50, and then, like a couple days later, it is at 100. Like you can see that line big time.
Speaker 1For the term. American Eagle For the term American Eagle.
Speaker 2Okay, if I go to the next line, I've compared American Eagle and sydney sweeney. It's the exact same thing, like both of them shoot up at the exact same time. So now obviously we do not have is all publicity, good publicity? Uh, I think for the most part, yes, like I yeah, I.
Speaker 1I would wager, if you took a poll, most people wouldn't think it was intended in the way that some people are taking it yeah so yeah, obviously this is going to be the loudest people in the room tend to be the negative people yeah right.
Speaker 2Like when people are doing good things, they're usually not as complimentary as when somebody thinks you're doing something bad well, it's like shohai otani, like he was very clearly gambling. Right.
Speaker 1No one talks about it anymore. Yeah, so, and he's still one of the number one jerseys being sold, right, so, right, like, if you, if you kind of want to move past the controversy or, in some cases, like lean into it for a couple of weeks until people kind of just realize like it's not a big deal, right, but we're not, yeah, we're not trying to get like into the politics of it or what. How you might feel personally about it. Everyone's entitled to feel how you want. Well, I just think it probably I don't think they overthought this, I think it was very much like they're. They're using these words because it's a it's, they're playing on a word, so it's wordplay, so that they can Talk about her body when, like you said, american Eagle isn't.
Speaker 1As open about it, as Abercrombie used to be, but Like because she's not showing Skin. But obviously they're're selling the same thing.
Speaker 2This episode of the Unstoppable Marketer is brought to you by BFF Creative. Let's be real hiring designers and video editors can get super expensive, and that's why I'm excited about what BFF Creative has done. They've built a subscription design service that gives you the feel of an in-house creative team, but at a fraction of the cost, which I'm sure we all could use right now From ad creatives to social media posts, video edits to full website designs. Bff gives you unlimited designs and unlimited requests, starting at just $1,000 a month. The best part about this their custom app makes it super easy to submit projects, give feedback, review, work and store all of your creative in one place. As a listener of the podcast, you get 25% off your first two months with code unstoppable 25. That means unlimited creative for as little as $750 a month. Go check them out right now at bffcreativeco.
Speaker 2I mean, here's the lesson here, and I think the thing that I want to touch on is you asked the question like is any publicity good publicity? And I think, for the most part, the answer is yes. I think one of the biggest case studies on that is the fact that Donald Trump won the election. Like who had more bad publicity?
Speaker 1ever.
Speaker 2Yeah, like ever, I can't think of something that had more bad publicity and we're not saying he didn't deserve or deserve it. Yeah, no, no, no. We're not necessarily taking a stance on that.
Speaker 1We're just saying he had a lot of negative news publicity. But because he had so much negative?
Speaker 2what happens when you have a lot of negative which is data-backed?
Speaker 1This is a scientifically-backed data tracker when you have that much negative publicity about you.
Speaker 2What happens is, for every negative piece of publicity, people I feel like it doubles in. Good, yeah, because that's not. That's not.
Speaker 1You have a level of like contrarianism and you have a level of just like wait a second. What do I think?
Speaker 2well, I love, I love the campaign, because American Eagle is just another. There's two things about American Eagle. One, they used to be huge when I was in high school. So we're talking like 040506, right, huge, but they were the number three. So even though they were huge, they were the number three. It went Abercrombie Hollister, american Eagle Aeropostale. I don't know if I said that right, that was like the Were they 100%. That was 100% how it was.
Speaker 1I was a little skater boy, so I wasn't really.
Speaker 2So my parents, my mom and sisters were way, way into it. They like loved it.
Speaker 1Oh, you had older sisters.
Speaker 2I had one older sister, one younger sister. They loved it. My dad, I actually still think to this day where's Abercrombie? First cologne?
Speaker 2which is like the aqua DGO of that time.
Speaker 2Okay, anyways, I digress. So one, those brands. Those brands have like kind of fallen under the wayside. Now Abercrombie has done some like really, really cool stuff to make a comeback, like they're growing and getting big, but they were like a nobody. Hollister hasn't really as much. So these old school, early 2000 brands are making a way back up.
Speaker 2So what I love about this for American Eagle is one they were massive and then became kind of a nobody. One of the most saturated industries in. Are they still in the mall? I don't know, but I don't know if anyone is nowadays. I'm sure they are somewhere. Outlets, yeah.
Speaker 2So so one, they were huge became a nobody.
Speaker 2Two, in this time where they became a nobody, the reason why they became a nobody is because in this time where they became a nobody, the reason why they became a nobody is because all these other brands started coming out from a clothing perspective. That started like people started going after the smaller brands versus the chain, because when you would go to high school and you'd walk in on the first day of school, everyone was wearing your same outfit. And then we became, we wanted to be more individualistic and so when these clothing boutiques came out out these different brands. That's what kind of started to put these hollisters, abercrombies not under but lower. So I love it for two reasons one, it's getting them to get back on the map, as as I talked about brand. And number two, like it's just like, clothing is the most saturated industry, one of the most saturated industries in the market right now, maybe outside of the health industry yeah, and there's a like that's all true, but there's also a macro component with clothing where styles come in and out.
Cultural Shifts in Advertising
Speaker 1Totally I agree with that, and so if you're in clothing, you might want to consider this. There's there's a shift right now with, like, what is in style? For sure, so I think you have a style thing.
Speaker 1So and I think you're right there, because that american eagle was not in style for the last 10 years, but it's probably coming back in style for sure. But the same way, like kids were wearing jinko jeans, like I saw five kids wearing jinko jeans the other day and I just could not even believe my eyes yeah, five of them yeah, well, I mean, look at what we're wearing right.
Speaker 2Like I used to wear skinny jeans and I've worn skinny jeans in. Like you wore skinny jeans Five years. Yeah, I did, of course I did. Five years ago you were wearing skinny jeans. I don't know if it was that long, I mean I think so.
Speaker 1Really.
Speaker 2I mean, I have to go back and look at my timelines. I gave up the skinny jeans in my 20s. I guess that would have been early 30s for me. I could be wrong, maybe it was seven years ago, maybe it was two years ago, they're just not comfortable.
Speaker 2Agreed. I actually haven't worn jeans in like five years, like I have not worn jeans in five years Straight leg baggy. I just don't like them. Okay, anyways, there is something to drawing lines in the sand. We talk about this all the time, so I whether whether intentional or not whether it was intentional or not, by well.
Speaker 1Here's the line they're drawing the line they were actually drawing. If we want to really think about it, is they're? They're drawing a line around her sexuality?
Speaker 2totally yeah, I don't know if they were drawing a line around her sexuality? Totally.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't know if they were drawing a line around. I'm sorry, not her sexuality. They're drawing a line around sexualizing, for sure Not necessarily her own. Yes.
Speaker 2Yes, I agree, they're bringing that back in because that has been such an overly like nobody has really it's been more body positive. Yeah.
Speaker 1And it's been more like nuanced think for the last 10 years where, like the shift seems to just be like this is a hot girl now yeah and it's okay just to like throw in the hot girl on your ad.
Speaker 2Yeah so I I actually think what's going to happen from this is we are going to see a lot more of the sexualization of women come back in a potential, maybe more. I don't know how you do this, but like, maybe in a more respectful way.
Speaker 1I don't know well, she's not show like that's what's interesting, she's not showing skin. That's the whole point of it is like, hey, she's in our stuff totally and we're going to play on this word yeah and we're going to use that part of her as part of this campaign right pun intended and that's like, that's the line they're drawing is like we're just gonna throw this out there totally totally right, and so what they're doing is they're kind of again, we're not we're looking at this as observers and analysts they're, they're kind of shirking the total body positive right, which I don't think she's necessarily has like the body type that would say it's.
Speaker 1You know, some people might deem like the supermodel type is too skinny or, you know, I think women are always placed in these categories of too skinny or too big or too whatever. There's always like and some women are. You know, bodies are just different. But I think ultimately that's what they're trying to do here is recapture some of that early 2000s, I agree.
Speaker 2Because, and the beauty? When it worked once again when I say the beauty of this from a observing advertising. What is the purpose of advertising? How do I get somebody's attention Right, like that's? The very first thing is, how do I grasp attention, and then what do we do with that attention?
Speaker 1Right, and Sydney Sweeney is maybe the easiest way to grab attention right now.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think they crushed it. I think it's a huge win for them. I think, for every one hater you get, you tend to get like three big supporters. Um, I think that brands, the lesson that brands can learn, isn't necessarily to go out and you know, we're not saying brands go out and sexualize women. That's not what the message here the brand is, or the message is you gotta do something different in order to stand out. Different in order to stand out. You're a clothing brand. Like you can't just continue to put the same girls in clothes or the same boys in the same clothes, Like you have to do in a pretty setting you know, on a beach.
Speaker 1And the other thing here is partner, partnering up with people that can.
Speaker 2Collaborating with people.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, collaborating with people that are lightning rods. Yeah, like she's a lightning rod yeah, and obviously she's going to garner the attention because of her name, because of I don't know how she's turned into this, like I, you know, like I don't even know if I knew her name a year ago. If we watch the shows, maybe it would make more sense to us maybe I don't know I don't, I really I'm like, I'm kind of baffled at like how quickly she's become this. Every household knows her name person yeah so well.
Speaker 2I shout out honestly the best marketing thing here is her, her agency, great good job to you guys well, I think White Lotus and Euphoria I don't not, I do not and, once again, I haven't seen either of those, but those were like At the time when they were released, they were the hottest shows, 100%. I don't know. Yeah, maybe they were. No, they were.
Speaker 1Were they.
Speaker 2Yes, I promise you, they were.
Speaker 1Most talked about or most watched.
Speaker 2I don't know. My guess is it's one and the same. Okay, if most people are talking about them, it's like sales follow search. Same thing like talking about a show you know follows watching. I guess Watching follows the talking.
Speaker 1It's because I could be totally wrong here. Guys, I have no idea, honestly.
Speaker 2When they came out. You have to look. When they came out, she came out of nowhere and I was like so I don't know like how big her role is. Maybe she had a part in there that made her very attractive.
Speaker 1I don't know but when dr squash launched the campaign, they also went from a 25 to a 100 interest they did with her.
Speaker 2Yes, so she's, she's clearly and it was like I think the results were like millions of dollars in sales.
Speaker 1So she's, she's clear and she's boosted their average like they were actually at 25 before the next month. They they started slipping after her campaign, but they're still sitting over uh 40, which is huge. Interest on google trends, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2And then what happened shortly after Dr Squatch sold. For what Was it? 1.9 billion.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Or seven.
Speaker 1But I think the lesson here is one you can collaborate with people that are going to bring this attention to your business. Two can you capture cultural moments in a way that are lightning rods for your brand.
Speaker 2And three can you find Because this is like.
Speaker 1Maybe some people are saying this is a cultural moment of like I don't want to say like there's no body positivity anymore, but it feels like that's a tone shift.
Speaker 2Talking about her good genes, obviously it's referencing her body yeah, number three is drawing lines in the sand people weren't talking about that in advertising in the way they were in the 2000s they were pointing out how pretty somebody was in advertising.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, so is. Are they? Are they capturing a tone shift? Are they capturing this shift to make sales again? Morality out of it. We're not here to say we agree, or disagree.
Speaker 2Is this right or? Wrong yeah, but yeah, the the opinions we're sharing was is this a success or not a bit.
Speaker 1Yeah, a business success which the, the numbers would say it has been yeah, and and and.
Speaker 2Somebody will do some sort of case study in the next month or two. Probably that will show if american eagle sales spiked, yeah, so we'll see. Like somebody will do it and it might it might be american eagle and in fact it probably will be. Because of how controversial this has become, I'm sure they will submit something that says, hey, this is why we did it. So we think it was a win. Lessons to be learned um cultural moments, drawing lines in the sand, big opportunities. I feel like every single podcast episode. We always end with like at the end of the day, you just have to do it different. Like, do it different than what your competitors are doing. Stop watching what they're doing and start finding ways to pave your own path to get attention.
Lesson in Capturing Attention
Speaker 1And, by the way, I do just want to throw this out there about what we're talking about. This has this is rooted in history. If you go back to Marilyn Monroe, she played a big part in the diamond industry.
Speaker 2Oh really.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I did not know that.
Speaker 1So when we're talking about these things, like you can kind of compare a sydney sweeney to a maryland monroe type- type person yeah, so this is this is rooted in in business history in the united states, in in advertising. Yeah, right, like back then they were using maryland, marilyn Monroe and ads were all kinds of things. Things sold really well, she sold things really well.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Sydney Sweeney appears to be doing the exact same thing, right now yeah for sure, and I don't know if there's anyone. And again, that what's weird is she's not. I don't think Marilyn Monroe was like a great. Does anyone remember her as being a great actress? I don't know, I don't know. Does anyone remember her as being a great actress? I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2She might have been Everyone like.
Speaker 1if you think of actresses of her time you're thinking of, like Aubrey Hepburn.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1Right, sure or Wizard of Oz. Who was that? It was Dorothy, I don't know.
Speaker 2Like that's kind of right, Like just like off the top of the head.
Speaker 1Those are the people you're thinking of yeah. But Marilyn Monroe is more of an icon. Right Sydney Sweeney appears to be in that similar trajectory.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, very interesting and good comparison. That's all I have, sweet. That's all I have too. Once again, from a thousand feet back was the success. That's how we're looking at it, not necessarily saying we just think about how you can capture attention as a business.
Speaker 1Yeah, american Eagle just captured more attention than they've had in. They're the winners yeah, decades. Yeah, I guess we should what I should have done in fact that their, their name, american eagle eagle has not been uttered from my mouth in decades. I've not even thought about them.
Speaker 2I have not said there were that those words probably in the last 10 years yeah and here we are doing a whole episode on it about american eagle. Yeah, I thought that brand was dead the other thing not to mention, like, if you just type in Incredible they're not dead.
Speaker 1Honestly, If you just type in American Eagle in TikTok.
Speaker 2And if you just type in Sidney Sweeney and American Eagle in TikTok, millions and millions of views right now.
Speaker 1Who's been buying American Eagle for the last 20 years? I bought American Eagle views when I went to middle. Yeah, like is it still been okay. That's still like junior high kids we're buying them. I.
Speaker 2Don't know. We just look it up.
Speaker 1I'm like just like baffled. They even are around. They're stuck around.
Speaker 2Yeah, they could have been one of those brands that like vans kind of eat, ate their lunch. Yeah, yeah, that one has stuck around for a little bit.
Speaker 1Underwear and swimsuits.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's like Intimates and swimsuits.
Speaker 1Like a Victoria's Secret.
Speaker 2No, it's not. Yeah, victoria's Secret is more sexualized that one's not like a sexualized yeah yeah, well, that's why I've never had this is a good thing.
Speaker 1It's a good thing I'm one of four boys.
Speaker 2You know, I'm like I knew about it because I had sisters who shopped there as I was growing up right, I had no idea they even had had that.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's hilarious yeah, but anyways.
Speaker 2So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. We'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the unstoppable marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you, because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.