BRAND BACKLASH: Sydney Sweeney, American Eagle, Viral Ad Fallout (Ep. 005)

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When American Eagle dropped their Sydney Sweeney “good genes” campaign, the internet exploded… but not just because of her looks. We break down the backlash, what went wrong, and the deeper marketing lessons you need to take from it.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why brand pivots go wrong — and how to do it without losing your audience
• The neuromarketing strategy behind envy, attraction, and sales psychology in this ad (see Michelle TT video here with deeper breakdown)
• What this campaign teaches us about aligning content with brand voice and cultural context

Timestamps:
 03:12 – What actually happened in the Sydney Sweeney x American Eagle ad
 06:45 – When “good genes” becomes bad PR
 10:22 – Messaging missteps: Where AE strayed from their brand
 16:10 – The power (and risk) of propaganda-style marketing
 22:40 – Strategic pivots vs. brand betrayal: How to shift without shocking
 29:55 – Should you respond to viral moments in your content?

References & Resources:

• Sydney Sweeney
• American Eagle
• Calvin Klein (Jeremy Allen White ad)
• Brooke Shields 1980s jeans campaign
• Lola Tung (The Summer I Turned Pretty)
• Coldplay kiss cam incident

Links to TT Videos with more information about the ad:

• sayantanidasguptabooks
• drjess21
• millenial.mia

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📩 Michelle: hello@michellepualani.com
🌐 Joanna: millennialmktr.com

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Transcript

BRAND BACKLASH — Sydney Sweeney, American Eagle, viral ad fallout (Ep. 005)

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Click Tease podcast, where we bring you weekly updates of what's happening in marketing, content creation, and online digital business. Today we are specifically talking about the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle campaign and why the internet is in such an uproar, not just the points of our political climate and what is being said about the campaign, but more importantly, how you.

Can take heed of an experience like this and be more conscious about leveraging marketing on a national scale in your business so that you avoid mistakes like these and can better connect with your audience, keeping your authentic brand voice top of mind. Let's get into it.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: I am excited to chat today. I feel like we have some big things to cover, maybe some heavy things to cover, but first, as always, we need to chat about our delicious beverages that we're drinking today. I have, to look at the can. [00:01:00] second. I have a draft latte. La Columbe and if you're watching, you can see it in the picture.

La Columbe is one of my favorite coffee shops. I don't have one near me, but there's one in Chicago that I go to and they make these like draft lattes that are just like my favorite thing. Now, unfortunately this can is not as good as the real thing that you get in person, but it's similar. So that's what I'm drinking today over ice.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: When you say draft latte, is that something you actually pull from like a 

tab? It's like in a cake.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: Yep. They pull, they pull it from a keg, so it's like a little frothy. So it's like a pre-made latte that gets like put in a keg and then you get it out of the tap, basically. But it's pre-made and so the milk and the processing is kind of like foamy.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Oh, I love that. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: really tasty.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: We live in such a small town. It's just such a great reminder that there's so [00:02:00] many cool things out there in the world, especially in cities and innovative things that people do, and we're very limited here. So I feel a little out of the loop sometimes, which is a big thing when it came to this.

Topic that we'll be talking a lot about today that Joanna had to send me because otherwise I would've been like an ostrich in the sand. Okay, so I am drinking my mushroom morning drink and I feel like I did a better job with it today. I've got pecan milk, um, it's a mix of mushrooms and then maple syrup, and that's one of my favorite things to make out home.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: My, my husband told me the other day, he had this really great idea. He was like, should have Michelle, or you can send me a link. I should buy one of your strange concoctions and drink it on, on the podcast and like live, react to the earthiness

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: I'll just have to send it to you because we make, we don't buy just like a mushroom mix. We buy a bunch of mushroom powders and then we 

mix it [00:03:00] at home. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: Okay.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: just have to send you some powdered mushrooms in the mail, and 

then it's, you know, maple syrup and milk. And so we'll get you that.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: Yeah, I can do, I can handle the milk and maple syrup, but if you give the mustard, the mustard, the mushroom powder concoctions, I will attempt it on one of these episodes.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Ooh, that would be fun. Okay. Done Deal. Good job. Um, let's see. What should we chat about first today?

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: I don't know. Do you wanna get right into the Sydney Sweeney of it all?

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Let's talk about the elephant, the big blue elephant. That the internet is up in arms about right now. It's phenomenal. So we are gonna chat a lot about, I guess, our perspectives. I definitely did a bit of a deep dive. There's definitely certain topics that I don't feel qualified to speak about, and so hopefully we can refer you via links in the show notes below to check all of this out.[00:04:00]

If you haven't heard about the Sydney Sweeney ad, you're like me living under a rock. If you have, and you've seen a lot of content, it may be that your algorithm is feeding you certain things. So I think it's important to check other resources and do a little bit more digging when it comes to different and varying perspectives.

So we're gonna talk a lot about the perspectives. We're gonna talk a lot about how. Marketing is such an important thing that you need to consider in terms of your positioning, because a lot of times I think especially as personal brands and businesses, it's like, oh, let me just make content. But we don't think about the implications of that content, and I think it's why we see a lot of creators, quote unquote, get canceled, right?

Like almost every single big name in the space, I start to see something, one piece of content that they produce, which totally like red flags. Their marketing and their positioning and their voice and everyone, there's just like, it, it's like a, [00:05:00] a slew of responses, right, that come out on social media and they're like.

This wasn't as big of a deal as you made it, but it is because people are sensitive these days, and in our political climate, it is important to be thoughtful about what you're communicating, how you're communicating it, and what's going on in the world. Because as we are in an environment in which everybody's plugged in, tapped in, tuned into what's happening, which didn't used to be the case, we didn't necessarily know what was going on around the world.

10, 20, 30 years ago, we couldn't just pull up our phones and check in on these things. People weren't talking about them, but now we are. And so I think it's more important now than ever before to be conscious about what you're speaking about, how you're speaking about it, and what you're bringing to your marketing, especially with social media because that.

That stuff can take off like wildfire and there can be a very [00:06:00] negative backlash, which is what we're seeing right now.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: And so if you are listening to this podcast and you're hearing. Sydney Sweeney American ME goal for the first time this week, which would surprise me, but it's totally possible that your AL algorithm is not pushing you. This conversation, we'll give you a kind of quick overview of what's been going down. Sweeney was announced as a kind of a new. Spokesperson, so to say, for American Eagle in a series of ad campaigns and in the ad campaign, they're using this play on words between genes and genes, meaning genes as in denim, and genes as in your genetic makeup and your genetic material. Now, the ad is using this play on words, and you listen to the copy and you should go, go listen to it and watch it, but if you. There's a huge implication around what good genes are because they're using this play on [00:07:00] word between genes and genes, and she's talking about where she got her genes and that her genes are good and that her eyes are blue, so. Ad copy could be seen in a lot of different ways, and we'll talk about that throughout this episode, but that's what's going on.

There was this ad that happened now in the process, if you, if you search up this situation. gonna actually get, depending on where you are, what you're looking for, two very different perspectives because on one end, American Eagles stock prices soared, so they're getting a lot of attention. Um, we don't, I haven't seen yet if there's data about it, like translating to sales, but they're stock prices soared.

And then on one side of the internet is. Being very critical and having a conversation about the problems with this ad and what that means and what it entails and all of that. So we have these two varying [00:08:00] reactions to this advertisement and it begs to It brings up so many questions. You know, we can talk about was it intentional? Um. Is it problematic? Is it just fine? But I think the really interesting conversation for us is. Really the role we play as bus, the role business owners play the role corporations, the way we as business owners play as we interact with the media, right? You brought this up earlier, Michelle. Like what we say has an impact and the messaging we put out in the world has an impact.

And are we as business owners and are the business owners of American Eagle? Do they need to be held accountable when they're, when their messaging that they put in the world and they share in the world harms people.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: So I am seeing a ton of different viewpoints, at least on social media, which is where I'm looking right now about [00:09:00] this situation. And so we're having. Like Joanna mentioned, two ends of the spectrum and then other people kind of, of course, along the spectrum of some people like not understanding, there are people who see this ad and they're like, what?

It's a great ad. She's super sexy. Like, what's the problem? And then you have people who are like, wow, this is deeply prob problematic. Even the blue thing in terms of her eyes and actually referring to like blue blooded and the historical implications of that from a racial perspective, there's. A lot to be spoken to in the, not just what it would be seen as, like an underlying tone, but a very explicit statement.

Now, there's other things about the actual marketing side of things that I definitely wanna cover today and speak to, and I think are important to still take note of outside of the political climate and outside of the political undertones, or again. I'm seeing like quote unquote megaphone, like it is a [00:10:00] very loud statement.

It's definitely not something that is in what would be seen as like a subtle marketing ploy. It's, it's very obvious and it's interesting because I'm seeing different people from different walks of life have very different reactions, very different experiences in their interpretations. We are looking at like professors of history and eugenics and.

Understanding political climates and everything else from more of like an educational perspective. Speak to it in terms of like, these are the facts, this is what has been demonstrated before. And then you have people who are like, I have no idea what's going on. Like what's the issue with this? And some of those are black creators and people who theoretically would be what I would consider to be most impacted by this.

And then you have your like. White, I saw white blonde hair, maybe not blue eyed, but very close creator speaking to it from an advertising perspective. So it's [00:11:00] just interesting because I feel like all of the narratives and perspectives and what's being said around the campaign are very highly dependent on a certain person's own experience, what they have been taught up until a certain point, or what they've been exposed to.

So. That's kind of like just my initial, like even thought when Joanna sent me this and I started watching some of the things related to it, I'm like, wow, this is interesting. And if you go into the comments, which I have really been doing a lot of recently, is like looking at a piece of content and then looking at the comments and seeing how people are receiving it.

Because marketing is a form of communication and communication only takes. Place when there are multiple parties expressing and multiple parties receiving, or one party, right? You have a party who's expressing and you have someone who's receiving communication. Doesn't happen in a vacuum. Communication doesn't happen with one person saying something.

It's like when a. The falls in a tree, A tree falls in a [00:12:00] forest kind of concept, right? And so reading these comments, it, it's very mixed. Like people are across the board not understanding why it's important or relevant, saying it's a jeans commercial. I'm totally sold people saying they're unfollowing American Eagle, they're never buying from them again.

And people who are really speaking out about the political racial implications of the ad.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: And like I have been an American Eagle shopper, like, and. This conversation in some ways makes me sad because previously American Eagle has really done, I think, a very good job of showing diversity. Um, they don't use airbrushing in their bathing suit and underwear ads. They show all kinds of body types, body sizes, skin tones, even people with like. or missing arms, like they've been very diverse in [00:13:00] what they're putting out into the world. And this does feel like a big shift and I think something that we have to remember in this conversation. There are lots of people who are saying, what's not that deep? It's just a gene jeans commercial.

It's not that deep. But when it comes to media. You have to take it in the context of what was their message before? What is their message now, as a company, you have to take in context what else is happening in the world, political politically, and what's happening to people. You also have to take into context what other things this ad actually is referencing as well, right?

Like it all exists together and I saw, we'll link this video in the show notes, but I saw someone who is like a media studies professor or PhD. She was talking just about the fact that. Media is a conversation. All pieces of media are in a conversation with all other pieces of media. So [00:14:00] saying it's just a Genes ad, it's not that deep, really an uneducated response.

You could probably have an educated response that said, no, this is okay. And like, give me an argument. I haven't heard one yet. Like I haven't had heard a good, educated argument saying like, no, this is not. propaganda, like I haven't heard a good one. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but I haven't heard one yet. And one of the things, when I first saw the ad, I thought, like when I first watched it in a vacuum, I was like, I was, I didn't even know people were calling it like propaganda. And I was like, Ooh, that feels a little wrong. And I was like. Maybe they didn't mean it that way, but then I was like, I know someone saw that in the room and it was like, guys, this is not okay.

Like I work in marketing, right? Like I know this went through rounds and rounds and rounds of reviews. I know someone said [00:15:00] something, right? And they approved it. Anyway, so even if it wasn't intentional, they had to have known it would get some sort of reaction like, like against it and, and released it anyway. But then I watched a, it's like a 1980s Brooke Shield's, Calvin Klein commercial that does the same thing. It's the same plan words, jeans and jeans. And they used some similar shots, some similar language. So it was definitely, that ad was definitely informed. By the Brooke Shields ad, like someone was like, oh, let's kind of use that and modernize it.

Right? Like that had to have happened when you're watching the ad. And that adds eugenics is much more obvious. Like they're talking about selection of, of Gene and like they're talking a lot more specifically about that. Then I was like, no. They knew exactly [00:16:00] what they were doing. I was like, maybe they let this slide.

And then when I watched that ad and I saw the connection between the two, I was like, no way.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Yeah, I think, I think that one thing to pull out here is that marketing is very intentional and that you as a business and brand should also be intentional. I feel like I'm in an experiment phase of my business where I'm trialing different pieces of content, and I think that's okay to do. I am not someone who has millions of followers across platforms where I have a very established identity brand voice, and ultimately like ethics and morals to be able to uphold as a company where there are stockholders, there are interested parties, there are consumers like there are.

Employees who are invested in the way that you show up, right? Very different situation. We have a lot more opportunity to explore and trial and see what works and what doesn't because we're not on a national stage. Now, some of the marketing pieces with this campaign are things that I wanna [00:17:00] highlight in terms of.

Important to kind of pull out and pay attention to. Now, I don't think there would have been anything quote unquote wrong with this campaign. If they had taken out all of the words. Like if you listen to what Sidney Sweeney is saying, you're like, why would you say any of that? Just show her in the, and the campaign would've.

Still been very effective and successful, and we'll talk about kind of the principles behind why an ad like that would be successful. The other piece that I really wanna highlight is that you as a brand, have an identity in the digital space. Like you mentioned, American Eagle in the past has historically shown.

Representation from a diversity perspective in terms of skin color and body types. They have shown support for the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A community with Pride content. Now, I will say I was looking at their YouTube and there was some content over, uh, I don't know, like. [00:18:00] Five-ish months ago that was about the NFL draft, and I thought that was an interesting choice to be able to follow from a campaign perspective in terms of the NFL.

Now, the players that they were highlighting were diverse, right? You had black players and white players and things like that. But I was curious because I thought, thought that was a very. Masculine thing to show and the type of audience that they're appealing to. 'cause remember with your marketing, you're speaking to a type of person, you're speaking to a demographic, you're developing and identifying the niche of the community that you want to draw in.

And then ideally the clients that you wanna bring on board, right? Or the people that you wanna sell into your offers, your products, your programs. And you have to be conscious in the way that you are speaking in your marketing, in your positioning, in your content that speaks to that person and not other people.

I'll give an example a little bit later of actually an account that I audited recently for someone where she wasn't doing this. So [00:19:00] when it comes to the Sydney Sweeney ad and American Eagle. Sydney Sweeney is a big pivot from where they come from as a brand voice speaking to younger audiences. Speak, speaking to like more.

Fun, carefree, like not over sexualized content. And I think that's one of the things in terms of feedback that I'm also seeing is that if this is like a teen, pre-teen brand and that's their demographic. Why then are they bringing in someone like Sydnee Sweeney, who's oversexualizing the content because of her look and her voice and who she is as a Hollywood actress and star, and is that appealing?

So that's kind of like those, those are a couple things that are all going through my mind in terms of like the authenticity of the brand and the voice and how they're positioning themselves. And then also like. How they have [00:20:00] started to get away from what it is that they're offering by bringing in something like this, which is either a major pivot in their brand, that they wanna go a different direction, or a situation where it's like, okay, we wanted to try something and not sure how it went type deal.

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: Yeah. And when brands, and again, you have to remember, American Eagle's a huge company. I don't know their valuation or anything like that, but they're a publicly traded company. They're everywhere, right? People wear their jeans, people buy their clothes. They make a lot of money. They have a lot of money. Like invested in their marketing, right? This was, wasn't something they threw together and put on the screen and. You're right Michelle. That shift tells us something. That shift tells us that they made an intentional choice to do something different. Now, are they gonna continue down this path? Who knows?

Like we'll have to see. [00:21:00] But they made an intentional choice to do a different type of ad campaign that. That was alternative to what they normally do. So it was probably intentional in some way and maybe, um, I watched a video from like a former American Eagle employee. I guess she was actually like quitting today on her way to work. Um, but she was saying that for her, you know, she just, I think works like as a store associate. But she was like, I know this is intentional. Because every day when I go into work, they talk about men's gene sales and men's gene sales being down month, over month, over month, over month. So they're probably saying We need to get more men in. You know, and this is all conjecture, right? We don't know this, but I know businesses, like I know how businesses work and when sales are down, businesses make a change to get sales up. [00:22:00] Like that's like a principle of business. So they're saying, okay, are men's jeans sales are down? What? Do, let's do something that appeals to men. They make this ad campaign. They're like, some people might get annoyed, but it probably won't be enough. That'll hurt our bottom line. Right? They probably made a calculated decision to do this, and one, I saw one creator post like, you know, it would've been a good version of this campaign if maybe the exact ad with Sydney Sweeney came out and then the next day, the exact ad, but. Simone Biles was saying the ad copy and talking about her good genes and that, you know what that is. And then you know, another amazing, powerful woman or a amazing, powerful man, like if you brought in different perspectives, that would actually be really powerful. And even if they didn't say they were doing more people, if.

If day one, it was like Sidney Sweeney says that, and there's the [00:23:00] uproar. Then day two, there's another person.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Yeah. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: message of empowerment because as soon as you start and people are like, it's just a play on words. Like, no, it's a play on words and like, have you never seen propaganda?

Like I just wanna like. because like propaganda doesn't say, this is propaganda. Across the top, it probably says, this is just a little joke. It's not that deep, right? There were ads in the 1950s calling women crazy if they had emotions, right? What happens today when a woman shares an opinion on the internet, she is told to go to an insane asylum. Like that still happens today because of advertisements in the fifties and sixties that said women were crazy if they were opinionated or difficult or had emotions. Right? And those were like jokes that are still affecting women today. So, you know, we. Businesses and these [00:24:00] ad campaigns, they play a role in our life and they affect the way we see race and they affect the way we see culture and they affect like the ideals that we uphold.

So I think. It's just so frustrating to watch and like people don't get it. 'cause we could learn really great lessons and we could have really great conversations, but instead people are just like, well, you'd like it if she was black. And it's like, well, it would be a different ad if she was black because of the context and because of the history and because of what's going on in America right now.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Context makes a big difference. Climate makes a big difference. Timing makes a really big difference. The Hailey Bailey, uh, content piece that she did about let them eat cake, if, if. What happened politically that day across seas had not happened. It would've been a totally different reception, but these things do matter, and when you're on a stage of millions and millions of [00:25:00] people and millions and millions of views, these things are going to come up.

And it completely makes sense to me from a marketing perspective to be able to bring on someone like Sydney Sweeney, because that. AD was designed for men and from a psychological perspective, it was designed to create envy in women. And when you have young women who don't understand the context, who don't understand historical implications, who.

Don't have these conversations because they're just seeing an ad in isolation and probably aren't listening to conversations like we are having today, or some of the creators that you and I seek out. They're going to see that and say, oh, I wanna be like Sydney Sweeney. I wanna be like this hot bombshell blonde, blue-eyed American actress who is sexy and has all of these men after her.

That is a desire and tendency of. Human beings and our nature in wanting to be a part of, we're mostly governed by the reptilian brain. And I will say [00:26:00] from the the genetic side of things is we are still programmed from a genetics perspective to want to procreate and look for certain things in other partners in order to procreate even no, even so much so that during our cycle, our interest in different types of people changes.

And so I just think that there is a lot going on in the ad, and I think the direction is a very conscious choice. I think that people are like, it's not that deep. It's like, no, it's definitely very layered and very intentional from the American Eagle side. I think that, so that was my initial thought too, is.

I think I'll create a video about this, but talk about who I would rather see in the ad, or who I think would've been a good choice. Now, I think from a campaign perspective, you're totally right. If they had had let this out cause the uproar, and then they already had pre-planned and pre-done different [00:27:00] representations of good genes, quote unquote, then that would've completely changed things.

Right? And then, you know. Even if they were trying to avoid this type of controversy, like the idea that my genes are blue, I get, but I would've preferred something like my genes are American Eagle from a marketing perspective like that would have diffused that situation better, um, 

and been more specific. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: jeans are and the type of jeans she likes to wear. My jeans are baggy, my jeans are skinny, my jeans are mom jeans. Like if and then, and they have so many types of jeans and that could have been the play. We

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Yeah. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: eyes and fit for everybody. So then if you didn't continue with other people saying, my genes are blue and referencing. Blue eyes there's just a lot of history of people saying, [00:28:00] blonde haired, blue-eyed people are the ideal. And, you know, and people being killed for not having blonde hair and blue eyes like that. That was a choice. Do you know

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Yeah. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: mean? Because I, I think my genes are American Eagle, or my genes are. Insert your jeans style there and then like you could have little merch that's like my jeans are blank and everybody picks their

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Yeah. 

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: that fits them. Right. That would've been

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: Well, I think the thing, yeah, the, there's so many different directions they could have taken this ad that would've been much more collaborative, much more inclusive, and much more. Much more well received. Right. I think that based on the timing of this and their demographics, so take into account the type of people they're, they're typically marketing to and who likely makes them the most money.

This feels like a pivot ad, like you said, to men to try to gain sales where they're down. [00:29:00] I understand that that's probably the reason behind the National Football League and doing draft picks, or not draft picks, but um, yeah, I think that's what it's called. Honestly, football's not my strong suit, 

but like following no, don't, don't know it.

Marketing, yes. Football. No. Um, but. That likely is the direction, right? How do we gain more male customers? What is the goal here? What is the direction? Now, I would've loved to see this campaign come out with Lola Tongue, who is the main character, Isabella Belly, from the summer I turned pretty, and that show is incredibly popular right now, so the timeliness of it is fantastic.

She comes from a different descent. I actually don't know her. Her heritage, I should have looked it up beforehand, but that would have introduced a different look and feel than the white, blonde hair, blue eyed American quote unquote look and [00:30:00] genetics. Right. Um, and then also in terms of the type of person that you're appealing to, that's one younger generations, because this is like a teen based coming of age novel, turned.

Episodes and show. And then as far as women go in terms of purchasing for their children, like I'm 35 and I'm watching that show. I don't have any kids, but guess what? I would probably purchase, be more inclined to purchase something like American Eagle. If I'm watching the show, 40 year olds are watching the show who are mothers who are buying.

Jeans for their kids. Right. So I would've liked to seen something like that. And then like you mentioned, having multiple people when you put out a campaign like this, like it really should have been a lot more people involved in order to make it a success. When you come out with just like just Sydnee Sweeney, that's. Very limited 

and doesn't make as much sense. That's why I think a lot of people are also [00:31:00] confused, is like, wait, this is weird. Why is this happening? Like what we don't understand. Now it makes me think of the Calvin Klein ad done by Jeremy Allen White. Did you see that one? And when it came out,

joanna_2_07-29-2025_142749: I haven't, I'd love for you to inform me.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_2_07-29-2025_112749: so you'll have to look it up after this, but when it came out, it was like. Woo. Like all the women and people were like, oh my God, this is amazing. He's essentially in Calvin Klein, you know, like boxer, boxer briefs, white. Underwear and he's looking very fine and super fit, and he is like doing pushups or doing different things in it.

Now, of course, it doesn't have any of the like genetics undertone or copy that I can remember. I forget exactly what is said, but something like that comes out. It's incredibly sexualized. It's appreciating men. I think that there are very different standards. Like unfortunately, we live in a society in which.[00:32:00]

A man comes out in boxer briefs, super sexual advertising. Everyone is like, yes, this is fantastic. This is what we need. Sydney Sweeney comes out with an ad like this, oversexualized and. We're one. There are already all these other pieces at play that we've talked about, but just talking about the sexualization of Sydney Sweeney is negatively received.

I think that is in part because of the nature of the brand already and their brand voice, but also because she's already kind of this sex symbol and has curves and breasts and is an attractive human being. On that like very traditional front. I do think that she's being scrutinized individually, not just American Eagle, but scrutinized individually more so because she is a woman in this like [00:33:00] sexualized nature.

Now, I do think that again. Take out the copy, but if you repeated this ad for another brand, maybe even something like Calvin Klein or I don't really know fashion all that well, but let's just say a Jeans brand that wasn't specifically targeted toward young audiences and young women, it might have had, again, a very, very different reception, but.

Ultimately, you know, the point that we're trying to make here as you're listening, is not just a harp on American Eagle in the situation. There's so much content online, tiktoks and YouTubes and social media about ways to think about this and the perspective and bringing all that to light. So we highly encourage you to check out the links below.

Do your own research, do your own digging. But to bring it back around to you and how you are formulating your marketing content, what is authentic to your brand voice? What is important for you to be [00:34:00] able to communicate? Do you have certain ethics, morals, values that you wanna share on a consistent basis?

And how are you doing that? If you are going to make a pivot, it's likely good to be able to approach it maybe a little bit more methodically and thoughtfully, because if you have a target demographic and your audience is of a certain type and then you swing way over to this side, you don't want them to be confused.

You don't want them to. Be upset with the change that you're making, and for the most part, people will follow you and appreciate you and move along with what you're doing, but being able to present it in a way that is palatable, that makes sense and that is kind of true to what you're bringing to the world is very important.

In the context, especially of the world that we're living in now. The last thing that I really wanna talk about is something like this, obviously. So we are creating a podcast around [00:35:00] this piece of content. Should you as a content creator, business owner, respond to things like this? Recently there was the whole Coldplay kiss cam incident that brought up the affair between two coworkers of a company and then.

Trending viral s content, memes, brands, businesses, content creators, jumped on board to be able to kind of make fun of this situation that happened. And I think the larger question is what do you take part in from a trends perspective and how do you participate in these viral moments? To stay aligned to your brand, your messaging, and what you are trying to accomplish via packaging and promoting your offers. So that's all we really have to share today on this front. Remember to be super mindful about how you are marketing, positioning and speaking to your audience, keeping in [00:36:00] mind that target demographic and the actual client that you wanna bring into your community. So. Let us know what you think. We'll follow up with our substack in the link, in the show notes below.

You'll be able to join the Substack and we actually give you very tactical breakdowns of how to take what we talked about and apply it tangibly in your business. You can find everything in the show notes below, and we'll see you next time.