Before Sydney Sweeney and her genes/jeans came along, American Eagle CMO Craig Brommers thought he’d already experienced the most harrowing brand moment of his professional career.
A 25-year veteran of the industry, he was head of marketing at Speedo during the years when Michael Phelps dominated swimming at the Olympics: Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004 — then the record-breaking eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The difference? Speedo.
“That 2008 Beijing Olympics campaign was incredibly intense,” he recalled on Adspeak, the ADWEEK industry podcast hosted by editor in chief Ryan Joe. “We developed a full-body swimsuit called the LZR Racer with NASA, and this suit led to all sorts of records being broken.”
The technology was deeply controversial, dominating news headlines around the world. Ultimately, the suits were banned. Brommers went on to work at Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap, landing at AE in 2020. Then came the summer of Sydney Sweeney.
Brommers shared his experience of being in the eye of the media hurricane and whether the campaign played out the way he expected.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Why denim?
“So goes jeans, so goes American Eagle. As you may remember, ‘23 into ‘24, denim was having a moment in a very big way. And there were so many fashion brands up and down the landscape that were participating. And we really felt like we needed to make sure that we recaptured people’s imagination.”
Why Sydney Sweeney?
Brommers calls the back-to-school shopping season the Super Bowl of denim. “The brief was very clear: Let’s get the It Girl of 2025. Every key American retailer is bringing their A game for this particular period, and we wanted to level up and bring the best game that American Eagle has ever brought. She was perfect for this American Eagle campaign because she is this wonderful mix of aspiration and everyday, something that really fits our brand.”
The expectations:
“We knew that this was a more provocative campaign than American Eagle had done in recent history. And that would also get people talking. For the first few days, it was really a celebratory mood around the campaign. Then there were some absurd claims about the campaign. I actually felt like I was living in alternate universes because what I was seeing and hearing on social media, and to some [extent] the mainstream media, was very different than the business and customer performance metrics.”
The takeaway: