LEANING over the hood of a classic car, actress Sydney Sweeney smoulders for the cameras.
She turns around, leaving the lens to zoom in on her behind, which looks pert in a comfy-fitting pair of denims.
And the voiceover tell us: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”, before the beauty drives off and the brand name American Eagle flashes on the screen.
Simple? Yes. Game-changing? Absolutely.
There is no doubt Sydney is explicitly selling sex — as well as denims — and she is firmly in the driving seat.
Gone is the virtue signalling that underscores so much advertising today.
Instead, this new campaign is selling exactly what it says on the tin.
Woke messaging, and woke backlash, be damned.
The results over the past few days since the ads first dropped have been monumental. With just a few saucy clips and some accompanying sexy shots plastered on billboards across the US, the jeans brand has reclaimed its Noughties’ selling power.
Indeed, just 24 hours after launching the promos, American Eagle’s stock price had surged by ten per cent, netting the clothing company $400million in just one day.
It had also reminded us — definitively — that sex sells, and “woke-vertising” is a thing of the past. In other words, woke is officially broke.
The brand’s chief marketing officer Craig Brommers has called the campaign their own “Super Bowl” — which they’ve timed to coincide with the back-to-school period over the next few months.
Lapping it up
He said: “We really wanted to cut through in culture. It will signify to our audience that this is something different, unique, special and a big moment for us.”
Yet even with all its efforts — including a 20-storey high, 3D billboard in Times Square, a massive social media drive and a 360-degree advert at the Sphere Arena in Las Vegas — the firm could never have foreseen the impact it has made.
As well as the massive spike in stock price, elevating it to a $2billion company, it has also drawn a line in the sand when it comes to woke advertising.
Granted, the ad did, unsurprisingly, get backlash from some snowflakes and corners of the internet.
According to TikTok user Angie, who analyses ads under the handle @vital_media_marketing, the under-lying message of the campaign is inherently problematic as it postures a white woman with blue eyes and blonde hair as being the epitome of “good genes” (or jeans).
Taking to social media, she said that praising Sydney, in this context, makes for “one of the loudest and most obvious racialised dog whistles we’ve seen and heard in a while”.
Focus on genetics
Another TikTok user likened the focus on genetics to “1930s Germany”.
Despite the vocal complaints, the proof is in the pudding and, as far as American Eagle is concerned, a ten per cent spike in stock is worth a bit of outrage and protest.
After all, this campaign is unabashed and unapologetic in its pursuit, offering us a throwback to “the good old days” when ads were innuendo-laden, often un-PC and selling sex at all costs.
It may not be particularly deep, but it’s far more authentic than the performative social, political and cultural lecturing that has been clogging ad campaigns in recent years.
Meanwhile, Sydney is once again proving her serious selling power.
It is a niche the actress has been carving out over the past year, in addition to her soaring acting credits, and it’s one that hinges on her undeniable sex appeal.
We really wanted to cut through in culture. It will signify to our audience that this is something different, unique, special and a big moment for us
Craig Brommers
Make no mistake: this isn’t a sexual object who is being exploited for the cameras.
Sydney is smouldering, proving to consumers that she is in full control.
In another clip for the brand, the 27-year-old wriggles on the floor, filming herself with a hand-held camera.
Again, she is playfully selling sex and brands — and consumers — are lapping it up.
It’s what makes her such hot property, enabling her to keep nabbing critically lauded roles, including her Oscar-tipped turn in the upcoming biopic about boxer Christy Martin, while also marketing her overly sexualised persona.
Rather than being cheapened by that persona, though, Sydney’s success is rocketing and she has a reputed net worth of $40million, plus she is making companies millions.
According to brand expert Nick Ede, the genius is in Sydney’s USP.
“She’s a modern-day sex symbol,” he tells us. “I think what’s great about her is she owns herself and she owns the way she looks.
“She’s a bit like Sabrina Carpenter. They both own their sexuality, and it’s up to them what they push and what they don’t push.”
The genius is, by knowingly owning her sexuality — and cashing in on it — Sydney is empowering herself, and empowering other women, too.
She is also putting her money where her mouth is, having struck a deal with American Eagle where 100 per cent of the profits made on the limited edition “Sydney Jean” shape will go to the US-based Crisis Text Line, which supports survivors of domestic violence.
Surely that is far more worthy than any woke-tinged ad campaign could ever be?
She’s a modern-day sex symbol. I think what’s great about her is she owns herself and she owns the way she looks
Nick Ede
As Nick explains, Sydney knows full well what she is doing and she is in on the innuendo.
It is something she proved earlier this year, following her tongue-in-cheek partnership with soap brand Dr Squatch, which saw her release a range of soap made of her own bathwater.
Again, the messaging was overt, unapologetic, cheeky and displayed Sydney’s greatest, ahem, assets, with a knowing wink to the camera — while playfully mocking the “dirty little boys” who lusted after her.
It is also something the actress is well versed in after debuting as the hyper-sexualised character Cassie in Euphoria in 2019.
She has since learnt the art of capitalising on her sex appeal — last year wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that read: “Sorry for having great tits and correct opinions”.
And judging by her ad campaigns’ continued successes, she is clearly striking a chord with punters who have grown increasingly tired of the “woke” ads all over social media and TV.
In the past year, Sydney has also struck million-dollar deals with MiuMiu, HeyDude shoes, Samsung, Ford and clothing firm Dickies, plus make-up deals with Armani, Laneige and Kérastase.
Seduce audience
The implication is that, with her old-school, sultry branding and her modern self-awareness, she is the ultimate saleswoman.
Let’s remember, dating back to the Mad Men-style days of the 1960s, advertising has always been aligned to the art of selling sex.
It reached its peak in the Eighties and Nineties when — whether you were selling dishwashing liquid, shampoo or chocolate — you were aiming to seduce your audience.
Just think of Diet Coke’s infamous TV ads, that ran from 1994 to 2013, featuring a gaggle of women lusting after a topless workman to the soundtrack of Etta James’ I Just Want To Make Love To You.
Or who could forget the orgasmic-sounding commercial for Herbal Essences shampoo in 1998, which featured a woman in the shower oohing and ahhing as she massaged her scalp?
The suggestive marketing didn’t stop there.
Indeed, models such as Claudia Schiffer and Kate Moss became synonymous with risque ads, as they posed in very little for the likes of Guess and Yves Saint-Laurent’s Opium fragrance.
While fellow model Eva Herzigova stopped traffic with her infamous “Hello Boys” billboard ads for Wonderbra in 1994.
And we still blush at the thought of those very sultry ads for Cadbury’s Flake in the early 1990s, featuring lingering shots of a woman lathering up in the bath, before locking eyes with the audience as she seductively bit down on her chocolate bar.
Subtle, it was not. As for jeans, they’ve always sold something a little dirtier than denim.
Think of Brooke Shields’ 1980 Calvin Klein campaign which featured her alongside the tagline: “ . . . what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
Forty-five years later, the world of advertising is back to where it started, with an added level of playful awareness — but it had to take a few detours along the way.
In recent years a plethora of brands embraced the so-called “woke-vertising” of the moment — a trend where a political or cultural lesson emerges as the centrepiece of a frivolous campaign.
The intention may have been worthy, but the outcome hasn’t always had the positive effect intended, as Jaguar can attest to.
Last year, the car firm was mocked over an ad featuring models of different races and genders in bright colours — but no cars.
Critics slammed the brand for its “woke corporate virtue signalling”, claiming it had made a gross misstep in trying to stay relevant by over-pandering to PC culture and erasing its identity.
Elon Musk weighed in on X, asking the firm: “Do you sell cars?”
Likewise, Pepsi made a faux pas in 2017, with their advert which showed Kendall Jenner giving a smiling police officer a can of the soda amid a race protest.
Then there was Ben & Jerry’s disastrous 2023 ad campaign, in which the ice cream giant called for the US to return its “stolen indigenous land”.
Consumers were duly dumbfounded by the unsolicited lecture.
Amid the “woke-vertising”, it seems brands have lost sight of the point of ad campaigns — to sell a product, not lecture their audience.
American Eagle’s success should force them to think again.
