In 2025, campaigns from American Eagle and Gap reminded us that advertising campaigns shape how we understand identity, desirability, and cultural relevance. Sydney Sweeney’s partnership with American Eagle and Gap’s campaign featuring KATSEYE look like standard celebrity and influencer marketing, but both function as powerful pop culture texts that show us just how brands use celebrities to construct meaning.
American Eagle’s campaign with Sydney Sweeney leaned heavily into a standard, played out formula where they relied on hyper-visibility, aspirational femininity, and nostalgic “girl-next-door” aesthetics. Sydney has the standard, safe image of being white, conventionally attractive, and widely recognizable. Her being the face of this campaign worked as a shortcut for desirability and relatability. The backlash that followed was all about what the ad symbolized of whose bodies and identities are still treated as the default in mainstream advertising. This reaction highlights something is discussed in our readings that popular culture often reinforces ideologies by making certain images feel “natural” or unremarkable, even when they reflect narrow standards.
Shortly after, Gap released a campaign with KATSEYE and positioned the brand as globally minded, youth-driven, and culturally aware. Featuring a diverse, international girl group automatically insinuated inclusivity and modernity, which aligns with Gap with Gen Z values. They were focused on selling relevance, and it's part of what made their campaign so successful. The campaign suggested that Gap understands where culture is going and wants to be part of that movement, not stuck in the past.
What’s interesting is that both campaigns relied on the same rhetorical strategy of attaching meaning to a product through people. As Brummett explains, popular culture works rhetorically by shaping what feels normal, desirable, or aspirational through everyday media. Sydney Sweeney and KATSEYE are symbols of the brand. They stand in for entire lifestyles, values, and identities that consumers are invited to align themselves with through purchase.
This shows how advertising actively participates in creating culture. When consumers buy into these campaigns, they buying belonging, identity, and cultural positioning. Even criticism and controversy play a role which keeps brands visible and culturally relevant in an attention-driven media environment.
If advertising has this much power to shape meaning and behavior, where does responsibility fall? Should brands be held accountable for the ideologies they reinforce, or is it up to consumers to read these messages critically? And as consumers, how often do we stop to ask why a campaign resonates with us, or who it leaves out?
All kinds of pop culture and brand-alignment implications here, Ashlynn. The buzz the Sweeney campaign created for its play on "jeans/genes" definitely had consumers asking questions (silently or otherwise) and taking sides, but I imagine most folks don't routinely ask themselves why certain brands or campaigns resonate with them. As for the responsibility questions, I suspect the answer might be yes in both cases. Yes, brands should be held accountable for ideologies they're promoting or reinforcing. And yes, it's largely up to consumers to read them more critically. If we ramp up our attention to the latter, I wonder if it might lead brands to think more thoughtfully about the former.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how a jeans campaign turned into such a big cultural moment. (But that’s nothing new, right? Remember Brooke Shields’ Calvin Klein ad when she was a minor?) What stood out to me most with American Eagle was how differently people interpreted the visuals depending on their own values and identities. In my own research on this campaign, it was interesting to look at the dynamic of how the mix of sexualized imagery and supposed activism created such a confusing message. Some viewers saw it as playful or empowering, while others felt uncomfortable or excluded. This post does a great job showing how much weight visual storytelling carries, especially when brands try to walk that line.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your question, I do think brands should be held responsible for the ideologies they reinforce. Visual messaging carries meaning, and certain aesthetics can reinforce ideas about gender, race, etc. When brands position themselves as inclusive, audiences expect that to show up consistently in their visuals. The reaction to this campaign proves people are paying attention and willing to call out misalignment when something feels off.