Would American Eagle Do It All Over Again?

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: 

“I really think social media noise is one thing, but customer performance is really what you should be basing your decisions on. So this is not about emotions, it’s about facts and data. And because of that, we were able to confidently execute this campaign. I think that ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is the prime example that marketing works. In this case, marketing drove culture, product sales, stock price.”

What’s next?  

“The [marketing] mandate is clear: We’ve got to continue to drive buzz and we’ve got to continue to drive the business. From a driving the buzz perspective, I have the permission to make big swings. We have the swagger to take big swings, and you’re going to see that with talent, with music, with sports, with experiences as well.”

Would you do anything differently?  

“I really believe things happen for a reason. You can tell yourself you’re managing a crisis, or you can tell yourself you are optimizing an opportunity, and we chose the latter, and that has been the mindset that we will continue to have.”

Biggest lesson?

“The first one is social media noise is intense, and it’s hard not to listen and not to react, but sometimes not doing anything is actually the smartest strategy possible. And just looking at factual, accurate, real-time data and making decisions based on that is way more important than the swirl of social media.”

True partnership:

“When you decide to partner with boldface talent, you have to live up to the essence of what that means. It’s a partnership. In our specific case, Sydney Sweeney stuck with us. We stuck with her. And because of that, I think that it allowed both brands to come out of this experience even stronger.”

Would you do it again?

“The results speak for themselves. I get paid to deliver shareholder value. I get paid to create memorable experiences for our customers. I get to reflect the values of our brand and our corporation. And I think that these campaigns [with Sweeney and Travis Kelce] both did that.”