‘It was always about the jeans’: American Eagle CMO opens up about Sydney Sweeney campaign backlash

American Eagle’s top marketer Craig Brommers has hit back at backlash over the brand’s Sydney Sweeney “Just Jeans” campaign, calling the widespread criticism “absurd.”

Speaking on the Uncensored CMO podcast with Jon Evans, Brommers said he remains “dumbfounded” by the reaction — which centred on a perceived connection to eugenics — that saw the campaign pulled from some channels, insisting “it was always about the jeans.”

Brommers dismissed suggestions that the campaign’s wordplay on “jeans” and “genes” was intentionally designed to hook into race or genetics, saying the implications “didn’t come up at all” during audience testing.