Sydney Sweeney jeans ad signals major cultural shift in advertising

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Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad spurs Nazi propaganda controversy

'Good Day New York' co-host Rosanna Scotto joins 'MediaBuzz' to discuss the fallout from Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad campaign. 

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Call it Jean theory. 

Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad sent shockwaves through the advertising world, winning immense praise and triggering fierce backlash as well – but experts are saying that the ad represents a profound cultural shift. Industry analysts are saying that the ad represents a cultural turning point away from hyper-wokeism and towards more traditional forms of advertising. 

"The Sydney Sweeney ad is not just selling a product; it is signaling a cultural turning point. For years, brands have bent over backwards to appease a small but loud activist class, producing ads that felt forced, joyless, and polarizing. Instead of speaking to consumers, they pandered to an ideology that policed language, celebrated grievance, and punished anything deemed insufficiently progressive. This ad does the opposite. It is confident, fun, and refuses to apologize for appealing to mainstream sensibilities," psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert told Fox News Digital.

Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad signifies a major cultural shift, industry analysts say.  (American Eagle Instagram)

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The "Euphoria" star’s American Eagle sultry ad, which featured her decked out in a denim jacket and jeans with the tagline "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans," has been celebrated for its unapologetic embrace of a conventionally attractive spokesmodel and panned as an endorsement of "eugenics" by woke critics.

"Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color," Sweeney says in the ad. "My jeans are blue." 

The jeans/genes pun left many hyper-left viewers incensed, with many going so far as to compare the ad for pants to full-blown Nazism. 

"Oh cute she’s in her Nazi propaganda era," one social media user wrote. 

"Maybe I'm too woke. But getting a blue-eyed, blonde, white woman and focusing your campaign around her having perfect genetics feels weird," an X user wrote.

Defenders have noted 100% of the net proceeds from Sweeney's "Sydney Jean," which is embroidered with a butterfly to represent domestic violence awareness,will be donated to Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit that provides free and confidential text-based mental health support and crisis intervention. 

American Eagle doubled down on the ads in a statement.  (iStock)

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But others celebrated the ad, with Sen. Ted Cruz accused the "crazy Left" of coming out against beautiful women in a post on X. President Trump has also praised the ad after finding out that Sweeney is a registered Republican.

"Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there. It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves. Go get ‘em Sydney!' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The American Eagle ad comes in the wake of several high-profile woke advertisements that spelled disaster for major American brands. Bud Light sparked a national outcry and saw a steep drop in sales after the enlisted transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a brand partnership. Jaguar sparked major backlash after they released a 2024 ad featuring androgynous models wearing futuristic clothing that many viewers branded as woke. The luxury automaker’s CEO Adrian Mardell announced Thursday that he is retiring, just months after the ad debuted. 

"The Sydney Sweeney ad campaign is striking a cultural nerve because it signals a return to traditional branding strategies: sex appeal, simplicity, and star power. What makes it stand out isn’t just the creative - it’s the backlash to the backlash. For years, brands have chased ideological alignment with ‘woke’ values, but consumer fatigue is setting in. This ad leans into mass appeal rather than moral signaling, and it’s working," business and entertainment podcaster Shawn French told Fox News Digital. 

American Eagle refused to back down in light of the controversy, and released a statement saying the ad "is and always was about the jeans," in an implicit rebuke to the eugenics comparisons. 

"Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way," the statement read. "Great jeans look good on everyone." 

Bud Light saw its sales tank after partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.  (Vivien Killilea / Stringer)

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Juda Engelmayer, a crisis PR expert who reps high-profile clients such as Harvey Weinstein, says that while woke may not be completely dead yet, the ad is benefitting from an environment in which wokeness is in retreat. In previous years, woke activists could engage in cancel culture tactics that could severely hurt a brand for not hewing the party line, but the energy to fight over trivial cultural issues appears to have waned, Engelmayer said.

"It's not resonating as much. You're not seeing them screaming in protest as they did on other issues. Even people who are more on the woke side are rolling their eyes," he told Fox News Digital.