Despite capturing the conversation, Sydney Sweeney’s infamous ads impact is short-lived.
Sydney Sweeney has featured in a number of controversial, attention grabbing ads, but data has showed her brand impact fades quickly.
Sweeney has positioned herself as a polarising figure, which brands have utilised to create a buzz around their increasingly boundary-pushing ads.
Campaigns, like Novig’s Just Sports and Dr Squatch’s Body Wash Genie, have garnered criticism for sexualising women. Novig’s ad was slammed by athletes and high-profile women for degrading their contributions to sport.
However, sales data published by Adweek suggested this does not provide a correlating boost in sales.
American Eagle sales fell
At American Eagle, a similar boundary-pushing campaign lost the initial momentum. The brand was forced to defend the Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans campaign – which came out in July 2026 – against critics, who identified racist undertones in it.
The retailer called the ad a success despite the controversy, with chief marketing officer, Craig Brommers, saying the partnership brought in 790,000 new US customers in just six weeks.
The third-quarter of 2025 saw the brand’s comparable-store sales rise 1%, following a 3% decline in the previous quarter – although other celebrities like Travis Kelce were featured in campaigns for the apparel company at the time.
By the time American Eagle introduced its follow-up campaign with Sweeney, just under 10 months later, the boost was already fading. In the Q1 2026, comparable-store sales fell by 2%.
In an earnings statement, chief executive, Jay Schottenstein said “results at American Eagle were mixed” and the company was working to “reignite the women’s business”.
Is Novig the exception?
Sports betting and prediction markets platform, Novig, is hoping it can stand out as the exception. So far, it’s Just Sports and No BS (released shortly after) ads, have seen viewership hit around 100 million on Instagram.
The Wall Street Journal reported Novig has quadrupled its valuation to $2bn from $500m at the start of the year.
Novig has reportedly made a long-term partnership with the actress, who is also an equity partner in the company.
Dr Squatch
Dr Squatch’s Body Was Genie ad, which featured Sweeney, initially came out in June 2025. It included a contest held by the soap brand for a chance to win one of 100 bars of Bathwater Bliss soap made with her actual bathwater.
Another commercial saw Sweeney address the audience as “dirty little boys,” and the bathwater soap was advertised with a scent called ‘Morning Wood’.
This campaign reportedly led to a 20% increase in revenue in comparison to the previous week – but card translation data from Consumer Edge found the brand’s share of the beauty products market actually shrunk by 25 basis points in the two months after its release.
Sweeney’s brand grows
While the ads themselves featuring Sweeney garner plenty of attention and consistently achieve virality, this rarely goes beyond her personal brand.
Analytics firm Meltwater found 1.9 million mentions of Sydney Sweeney across Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Reddit and other major platforms between September and mid-October in 2026. This is slightly less than the 2.29 million mentions recorded in the five weeks following the launch of American Eagle’s jeans commercial.
Unfortunately for the brands, this does not necessarily translate. Just 65,500 posts mentioned Sweeney and Novig together in the same period, compared with 601,000 posts mentioning her alongside American Eagle in 2025.
As the actress continues to feature in controversial stunts, these campaigns lose their potency. It become less valuable for the brands that deploy them, with critics arguing it cheapens the campaigns rather than drawing meaningful attention that might translate into sales.
