Sydney Sweeney drives ‘unprecedented customer acquisition’ for American Eagle

Nathan Jolly

September 5, 2025 10:32

Sydney Sweeney drives ‘unprecedented customer acquisition’ for American Eagle

Sydney Sweeney has great jeans - and they drove shares up 25% overnight.

American Eagle Outfitters has declared its controversial ‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans’ campaign an overwhelming success, with the company’s CMO telling investors “the campaign has generated unprecedented new customer acquisition.”

Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers made the announcement during an earnings call Wednesday.

“To be clear, that consumer acquisition is coming from every single county in the US,” he said. “This momentum is national, and it is pervasive.”

According to the company’s earnings report, American Eagle’s recent campaigns featuring Sweeney and NFL player Travis Kelce have generated 40 billion online impressions, and added over 700,000 new customers.

CEO Jay Schottenstein told analysts: “We have seen periods of very strong demand from both campaigns, fuelling positive traffic in August, which was up consistently throughout the month.”

Although the company’s sales were down 3% year-on-year for the June quarter, it expects this to increase by low single-digit percentages for the remainder of the year, resulting in flat yearly sales.

“We know that purchase intent is significantly and meaningfully up, and we’ll be looking to convert this buzz into business all through the back half of the year,” said Brommers.

“The new American Eagle history has just begun.”

Although the actual sales impact of the campaign is yet to be seen, the market was clearly convinced by the forecast, with American Eagle stock surging 25% after the earnings call.

The Sydney Sweeney campaign on the Sphere in Las Vegas.

‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ was launched on July 23, and immediately faced fierce backlash for its use of the blonde, blue-eyed Sweeney with the genes/jeans wordplay, with some claiming it promoted eugenics.

In one of the ads, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring,” before stating down the camera:“My jeans are blue.” Another ad is even less subtle, crossing out the word ‘genes’ and replacing it with ‘jeans’.

The campaign was touted by the company upon launch as “a celebration of what the beloved brand does best: making customers look and feel good in American Eagle Jeans.”

The company went big with the campaign, with the creative featuring on Times Square and Sunset Strip billboard campaigns, as well appearing in animated form on the Las Vegas Sphere.

President Trump even weighed in on the controversy, taking to Truth Social in early August to declare: “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there. Go get ‘em Sydney!”