Right now, American Eagle is trending for all the wrong reasons. The campaign in question? A photo of actor Sidney Sweeney wrapped in denim, headlined with a cheeky pun: “Sidney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.”
Cue outrage.
Thinkpieces.
Accusations of racial dog whistles and eugenics-era echoes.
And right now, every media outlet is busy debating whether the ad is “tone-deaf,” “problematic,” or “clever wordplay gone wrong.”
Here’s the thing: none of that matters.
Whether or not the ad was a wink to genetics, or just a bad pun dreamed up in a deadline panic, what matters is how it was received. You don’t get to choose how your message lands—your audience does.
Let me say it again... less nice (because I know you came here for the realreal)... and louder for the CMOs in the back: YOU are irrelevant. YOUR INTENTIONS are irrelevant. Quit making it about you. It's not working out like you hoped.
If a chunk of your customer base interprets your ad as loaded, offensive, or just plain cringe—you’ve failed. Period.
I don't care about the meme stock bump.
And I really don't care to hear about the stories you've made up about it.
I'm a facts-first kind of monster, and unless you have data to prove your point, you're farting in the wind. And if you have to make s**t up to win an argument, you've already lost.
And no, you don’t get to hide behind “we didn’t mean it that way.”
You don’t get to roll your eyes and call everyone "too sensitive."
I mean, you can... but that don't make it a good f*****g idea! (Thanks Chris Rock for that one). This isn’t a freshman creative writing class.
This is capitalism.
This is your job.
The real issue for ME as a marketer isn’t whether the ad was “secretly racist.” It’s that the people who came up with that crap are so emotionally attached to their own BS, they're willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for it.
I just watched marketers on LinkedIn defend this ad like I just called their grandma ugly:
“It’s just a pun!”
“It’s just denim!”
“People are reading too much into it!”
Great, then let’s read into this: If your creative stirs up more fury than conversions, you’re not edgy—you’re incompetent.
And if your first instinct is to defend the work instead of fixing the disconnect, you’re not leading—you’re hiding.
This whole controversy is a masterclass in marketing malpractice.
Let’s get real:
You didn’t test the ad properly.
You ignored real-time feedback.
You let your own ego override audience insight.
If your “big idea” needs an explainer thread, a crisis comms team, and a week of awkward silence from brand HQ, then maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t a smart move.
A legacy brand tried to be cheeky. They didn’t ask the right people in the room.
They didn’t think anyone would call them out.
And when they got dragged, they panicked and froze—because nobody in that boardroom knows how to actually read the room. What is it now, day 5?
This isn’t about being “too PC.” It’s about being so insulated by your own creative echo chamber that you forgot marketing is about the damn customer.
You’re not here for you. You’re not culture critics. You’re not the main character.
You’re in the business of selling things to people. And if those people say “Hey, this sucks," maybe don’t tell them they’re stupid and wrong.
At the end of the day, the real issue isn’t the ad. It’s what the reaction (and counter-reaction) reveals: marketers are increasingly more loyal to their own egos than to their customers.
Want to win in today’s market?
It's not brave. You’re not brave. You’re just bad at feedback.
We’re not in 2003 anymore. You can’t just toss a pun on a pretty girl and call it a campaign.
We live in the age of receipts, nuance, and algorithms trained on outrage. That's a fact we have to live with regardless of how much you complain about it. If you’re not building marketing that can survive scrutiny, you’re not building anything that lasts.
So next time you or your team wants to “push boundaries," try pushing them with your audience, not against them.
And if you still think people are overreacting? Congrats—you’re not a marketer. You’re a liability.
If your team keeps screwing this up, maybe it’s time to talk to people who don’t.
Book a zero-BS strategy consult here →