PP 1- Crisis Public Relations
American Eagle's "Great Jeans" Advertisements
American Eagle is one of the most popular clothing brands among teenagers and young
adults, so it's no surprise that all eyes are on their advertisements. The
brand is most well known for their trendy tops, jackets, and of course,
jeans. People don't have to look far to see the American Eagle design on
someone's jeans. Despite its popularity, American Eagle recently faced
backlash over its recent advertisement campaign featuring Sydney
Sweeney.
Sydney Sweeney is an extremely popular actress known for her roles in
White Lotus and
Euphoria. Due to her fame, it is no surprise that she partnered with a well-known
brand.
One July 23, American Eagle launched its jean-focused fall campaign
titled "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans" with all of the advertisements
featuring the actress in the brand's iconic denim. The American Eagle
website also featured
Syd's Picks, a small selection of clothing that the actress either wore in the
advertisements or selected to promote.
Criticisms quickly started to circulate across social media when
connections between the ad were made to the 1980s Calvin Klein
advertisement featuring Brooke Shields. This commercial faced backlash
due to it featuring an underage actress dressing on camera as well as
promoting the idea of certain "genes" being superior to
others.
American Eagle's later advertisements cemented the similarities to the
1980s commercial with the play on words with "gene" and "jean". In one
Instagram post, the brand even addressed the similarities with the word
"genes" being crossed out in favor of "jeans".
The most infamous ad for the campaign included Sweeney stating that "My
Genes are Blue" in reference to her own appearance and jean
color.
Many consumers began to believe that the phrase "Sydney Sweeney Has
Great Jeans" promoted the ideas of eugenics and white supremacy. With
the ad campaign featuring only a conventionally pretty white blue eyed
blonde woman, many people began to state that the brand was promoting
the stereotypical white image over other types of "genes".
According to
Forbes, American Eagle stores across the nation attracted much less foot
traffic during and shortly after the campaign launched. At the height of
the controversy during the beginning of August, the amount of shoppers
went down to -9.0%. With the statistics before the campaign's launch
being almost +5.0%, the fourteen percent decrease was extremely drastic
for the brand's reputation.
Image Credit: Forbes
Further attention was drawn to the American Eagle controversy when
similar brands such as began to release advertisements focused on jeans
with a notable emphasis on multiple ethnicities and body types.
Abercrombie and Fitch
promoted feeling good in your own skin in their ads, saying "Denim
Should Feel Like This".
@abercrombie Abercrombie Denim. There's no better feeling. Soundtrack by @SG Lewis @Tove Lo . . Women's denim comes in Classic Fit and Curve Love Fit, which features additional room through the hip and thigh for curve-hugging comfort. . . #abercrombie #abercrombiedenim #abercrombiejeans #jeans #denim #abercrombiecollab #collab #launch #fyp #summer #summerfashion #summervibes #nyc ♬ original sound - abercrombie
Criticisms quickly started to circulate across social media when connections between the ad were made to the 1980s Calvin Klein advertisement featuring Brooke Shields. This commercial faced backlash due to it featuring an underage actress dressing on camera as well as promoting the idea of certain "genes" being superior to others.
According to Forbes, American Eagle stores across the nation attracted much less foot traffic during and shortly after the campaign launched. At the height of the controversy during the beginning of August, the amount of shoppers went down to -9.0%. With the statistics before the campaign's launch being almost +5.0%, the fourteen percent decrease was extremely drastic for the brand's reputation.
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| Image Credit: Forbes |
Further attention was drawn to the American Eagle controversy when similar brands such as began to release advertisements focused on jeans with a notable emphasis on multiple ethnicities and body types. Abercrombie and Fitch promoted feeling good in your own skin in their ads, saying "Denim Should Feel Like This".
GAP also created a denim-based commercial featuring the rising global girl group KATSEYE. The group is composed of young women from different nationalities and their popular advertisement featured diverse dancers as well.
These advertisements were highly praised by consumers for their creativity and inclusivity but brought more negative attention to American Eagle's ads. The brand declined to comment on the controversy until August when it released an Instagram post stating "It Was Always About the Jeans".
This response produced mixed responses from consumers. Some claimed that the brand did nothing wrong and that the controversy was unnecessary. Many people still believed that American Eagle was trying to dodge taking accountability for the negative message that the advertisements sent to the public. Certain videos, such as the one including the line "My Genes Are Blue" were later pulled from American Eagle's official social media accounts. However, most of the ads are still available to view online.
American Eagle launched a new clothing collection featuring another partnership with a familiar face, Travis Kelce. The Kansas City Chiefs football player worked with the brand for about a year to create Tru Kolors. This sports-focused collection launched some of its inventory on August 27 with the remaining pieces releasing on September 24, totaling to 90 pieces. The marketing for this collection included many famous athletes alongside Kelce such as Azzi Fudd, Kiyan Anthony, and Suni Lee.
This increase in diversity was simply called "damage control" by some, while others were pleased with the collection. Jennifer Foyle, President of American Eagle, stated “AE and Tru Kolors are rooted in optimism, self-expression and confidence – and we share a passion for empowering everyone to feel like their true self when wearing our products." According to Forbes, the collaboration was intended to promote the message of showing up authentically with confidence.
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| Graph Credit: Reuters |
Even though American Eagle took a heavy hit with the introduction of the "Great Jeans" advertisement campaign, the quick introduction of another collaboration helped the brand enter a positive public view once again. The negative attention the controversial advertisements brought to the brand even caused many people to become aware of the second, more positive collaboration. However, because neither Sydney Sweeney nor American Eagle ever released a true acknowledgement of the advertisements' negative message, it still remains as an old stain on their reputations. In order to fully remove the controversy's effect from the brand, it is extremely important for American Eagle to incorporate diversity in its future marketing. As shown by its recent partnership, it is more than capable of using celebrities in order to promote positive messages, so going forward the brand has lots of potential to build off of the large amount of attention that it has gotten from these recent events.
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