← Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
The inside story of Sydney Sweeney's 'Great Jeans' — and why American Eagle ignored crisis comms
00:42:26
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- [00:07]
A
Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore, where we are talking to all of the most interesting and intriguing people shaping our new media age. I am Max Tawny. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore, and with me as always from Semaphore's offices in New York is our editor in chief, Ben Smith. Ben, how are you doing this afternoon?
- [00:31]
B
I'm delighted to be here.
- [00:33]
A
Well, this week I'm sure you're extremely delighted to have on Craig Bromers. He is the chief marketing officer of American Eagle, and he is the man behind the controversial Sydney Sweeney ad campaign from earlier this year that had everyone from random tiktokers to the President of the United States talking about it. We're gonna ask Craig to take us behind the scenes of the year's most notable ad campaign. What it's like when your work is being tweeted by JD Vance and Donald Trump, and whether or not Travis Kelce timed his engagement to Taylor Swift to correspond with his fashion line release with American Eagle. Do you think he did that? Ben?
- [01:14]
B
You know I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Unlike many podcasters, I'm putting my tinfoil.
- [01:18]
A
Hat on when we get Craig on the podcast later. I think it was total conspiracy. But anyway, we'll ask him about that right after the break.
- [01:29]
B
There's new content waiting for you on Think with Google that you won't want to miss. Think is the destination for marketers to access things like first of its kind research on AI adoption with the Boston Consulting Group, insights on four key consumer behaviors, streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping, and deep dives on emerging technology and strategies that drive real growth. Get all of that and more by heading to thinkwithgoogle.com.
- [01:59]
A
So, Ben, a few months ago, American Eagle, the what to me is the kind of mall fashion jeans company, released this ad starring Sydney Sweeney that caused a lot of controversy.
- [02:11]
C
Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes are blue.
- [02:23]
A
Sydney Sweeney has for genes. Some people thought that it was, you know, playing into kind of like eugenics and the idea of superior races and superior genes. This was kind of like a small but vocal minority of largely people on the Internet. And it was immediately latched onto by a lot of political actors on the right, including the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, a lot of conservative commentators who really embraced Sydney Sweeney and said this was the woke left overreacting. And this is why Democrats lost in 2024, even though there weren't any elected Democrats who were all that upset about it, seemed to me more like, you know, some people online. But, Ben, we actually have a connection to this story in the sense that, you know, the guy who greenlit this campaign, who was presumably a little bit stressed earlier this year when all of this happened, and you sent him an email right at the middle of this, trying to book him on the. Which, by the way, that is fully the right thing to do.
- [03:19]
B
Yeah. In late July, because the ad was out July 23rd. And I reached out to Greg Brahmers, who's the chief marketing officer of American Eagle, has had similar jobs at Calvin Klein, Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch. I mean, I guess what struck me, and particularly as this went from being kind of a minor social media spat to like, Donald Trump demanding that you buy this company's products, that almost always when ad campaigns go viral now, it's a disaster, and everybody winds up apologizing, whether it's like Kendall Jenner and Pepsi or Cracker Barrel. I mean, these are the dumbest controversies, but also they're usually bad for the company. And companies and marketers these days are terrified of controversy. And this time, American Eagle basically just leaned into it and they say sold a lot of jeans. And I think that's, to me, in some ways, the most interesting thing about this is there's been this era of really unbelievable caution in the advertising business in a kind of politicized, careful attempt to stay out of getting people mad at you. On social media in particular, nobody wants to be Bud Light. And this was not a cautious campaign. And I'm curious to know how much they knew they were gonna be in this big mess and how much it was accidental.
- [04:33]
A
Did Craig respond to your email at the time? Did he seem stressed out?
- [04:37]
B
Yeah, it was a few days after, and he said that they had a great story to tell and it was nothing like what the media thought, but he was not yet ready to tell it, so I guess now he's ready.
- [04:45]
A
Well, there's a lot that we want to get to here with Craig, so why don't we bring him on and ask him about what it was like to live inside of this bizarre saga.
- [04:55]
B
So, Craig, thank you so much for joining us.
- [04:58]
D
Thanks for having me. It's going to be fun to unpack the most fascinating journey of my professional career and arguably the most fascinating campaign of the year.
- [05:08]
B
I guess just to begin with, what's the first conversation where you say, ah, what about. What about Sydney Sweeney, like, where did this begin?
- [05:15]
D
So, as many of your listeners may know, American Eagle is the number one selling jeans brand in the US For Gen Z. And so this back to school fall period is always what I call the super bowl of denim. And at the end of last year, we had a very clear brief to our team, and that was we wanted to create the IT campaign of 2025, partnering with the IT girl of 2025. And when you look at a list of IT girls, it's very, very short, right? And Sydney is right up there. And so when we were looking at a potential talent partnership, Sydney really was our hope and our dream. And what made her the most ideal person for this campaign was the duality that Sydney projects to the public. On one hand, there is not a red carpet that doesn't love Sydney Sweeney. Whenever she walks the red carpet, everyone wants to know what she's wearing, what she looks like. She's always the top of the news. And at the same time, she's a very accessible girl next door type of person. She's spoken publicly of working on cars, her love of the outdoors. And so when you think about the American fashion staple that is jeans, you can dress it up and you can dress it down. And so City made a lot of sense to, given the category, given our brand, and given what she represents, not just to Gen Z, but to both men and women.
- [06:50]
A
How do you pitch this to Sydney Sweeney? Like, what do you kind of say to her team?
- [06:55]
D
Well, I mean, listen, Sydney is very well known for being a marketing force for different brands. And so we always try to find people that have authentically worn American Eagle jeans in the past. As you may know, we had a collaboration launch right after Sydney with Travis Kelce. Travis and I spoke and he authentically wore American Eagle. Growing up, Sydney was the same. And so it becomes an easier conversation for us when someone knows the brand, knows the product, and is open to collaborating together, which in this case, Citi very much was.
- [07:34]
B
And where does the great jeans the line come from? It's obviously the famous old Brooke Shields campaign.
- [07:39]
C
The secret of life lies hidden in the genetic code. Genes are fundamental in determining the characteristics of an individual and passing on these characteristics to succeeding generations. This may result in the origin of an entirely new species. Which brings us to Calvin's and the survival of the fittest Calvin Klein genes.
- [08:03]
B
Was that your idea? Was that somebody else's idea?
- [08:06]
D
That comes really in the creative process, Ben. So that's a little bit further down the line. So you sign the talent that Talent. And his or her team works with us collaboratively to come up with the creative. And we shot the campaign in early April, so by that time, we had all landed on the great genes component. And, you know, a lot has gone on in 10 weeks, but I always try to remember that that is actually what this campaign was supposed to do. The campaign was always supposed to remind the American public that American Eagle has great genes. It's our superpower. It's our must win category. And so the use of that was very, very intentional. And obviously attaching Sydney's name was very intentional.
- [08:56]
B
Is there a moment, I assume, when you're spending this kind of money, this kind of investment, when you sit down with, like, your CEO, maybe your head of pr, and are like, okay, could something go wrong? What could go wrong? Is that, like a stage in the process?
- [09:08]
D
Well, I mean, I don't know if the mindset is at the start, what could go wrong? I think the mindset is how do you optimize opportunity? And whenever Sidney appears, she's gonna be in the news. And so I always thought that this campaign would, in fact, make some headlines. And, I mean, this story has crossed business to fashion, to entertainment, to politics. Like, it's a complete package in terms of a story. So it was never a surprise that casting Sidney for this campaign was going to make some noise.
- [09:44]
A
And did you feel, you know, as you were coming up with a kind of creative, Were there other kind of roads that you could have gone down that you thought were a little bit safer? Did you decide, you know, hey, this is something that we know might be interpreted a variety of ways, and yet we want to kind of lean into that, talk a little bit about what the creative process was like. As you were trying to come up with the, you know, the tagline and such for this campaign, we always knew.
- [10:07]
D
We needed to take a big swing. If you're able to land a big talent like Sydney Sweeney, you don't go into the creative process meekly. You have to go in aggressively and think about how this thing is going to cut across culture, cut across all the noise and all the attention that all of us have in front of us. And so this really was a moment for us to be bold, have some fun, still, of course, do it in our own brand handwriting. It was optimistic. There was a wink and a nod. Sidney was very much in control of the narrative of the campaign. But I'll be very, very clear is, again, we. We knew we wanted to define culture at this particular moment. Obviously, it ultimately exceeded our Wildest dreams. But that was the hope and belief as we walked into this.
- [11:00]
B
That's kind of unusual these days. Like, I feel like a lot of marketers are having meetings where they're like, we want to be like kind of adjacent to the Zeitgeist, but like, maybe not in the center of the storm. We were just talking before, like every brand I can think of that has been in the headlines around a campaign in the last five years has absol regretted it. Are you coming from like a more deranged place? Is this a feature of the jeans industry? Like, what's the.
- [11:21]
D
I don't know if it's a deranged place. I think it's a pragmatic place. Because when someone asks me who does American Eagle compete with today, I actually don't think of the core retail competitors anymore. I, I really think that we are navigating the attention economy and we have to program our brand as if we were an entertainment channel. And I think that with the back to back sensations Sidney and Travis, I think we proved that. Point of, in order to be in the conversation, you have to be the conversation. And that's what I think we achieved in late summer and early fall of this year.
- [11:59]
A
So, you know, to bring it back to the campaign itself, did you anticipate that there was going to be any sort of criticism of the campaign? And was that something that you were like, you know what, we're willing to kind of take that risk.
- [12:11]
D
There's a couple ways to answer this question, but I think that where you're going directly is did we anticipate anyone criticizing this campaign over eugenics? And the direct answer to that is no, it's absurd. This campaign was always about the genes, always about her story. And the claims that some people were making against us are literally absurd.
- [12:36]
B
Was there. I mean, I guess I just assume, like when we launch a big story, we do think about, okay, like what in here could somebody get mad about? Like, not necessarily to change it, but just kind of anticipate. Was there something else that you were like, oh, actually I thought this was the risk and that didn't happen.
- [12:50]
D
I think that from a creative perspective, there was some areas of the campaign that were a little bit more provocative than we've been before. And so I wondered if that would be some of the pushback. You mentioned Brooke Shields and Calvin Klein. We know Cindy Crawford with Pepsi back in the 90s. There's been moments where talent has just cut across culture in ways that either were expected or unexpected. But everyone was Talking about it, I really did think this campaign would get people talking. But again, the way that people talked about it or projected certain parts of culture onto this, no, we did not anticipate this.
- [13:31]
A
So you dropped this ad. You drop it on July 23rd. What's your day like?
- [13:36]
D
Well, my day is going very well, Max, because the stock went up almost 25% on day one. And it was very much a reaction to Sidney being cast. And I think that we were reading really exciting coverage, whether in the mainstream press or in social media. And again, this was a combo platter of, gee, how did they get Sydney to wow, that's really exciting and interesting, creative to the Wall street impact immediately. And so my day, our day is going to, going pretty damn well on, on day one.
- [14:17]
B
Have you ever moved a stock like that before as a marketer?
- [14:20]
D
No. There were three moments in the course of the first six weeks that literally are jaw dropping. You know, you had that initial 25% bump, then you had another 25% bump when President Trump commented on the campaign. And then I had the privilege of joining our earnings call. That never happens for a publicly traded company. There never a CM joins. I did. And of course it was for a lot of reasons, but it jumped 38% on that earnings call. So I think that it was a, again, just a crazy ride from a Wall street perspective over those first six weeks.
- [15:04]
A
So the stock jumps initially, you're having a great day. When does it get a little stranger? When do you start picking up on the fact that this is not going to be normal?
- [15:13]
D
So, Max, it wasn't until Sunday and I vividly remember when I first learned that people were having an interesting reaction. I sat down with a cup of coffee at home to read LinkedIn. To date on LinkedIn, there had been again glowing news about the campaign. And I started reading some very nasty comments directed at me. And I was like, whoa, this is coming out of left field. What is this and where is this going? And, and that was the first moment that I knew that there was going to be a different chapter in this story than we were anticipating.
- [15:58]
A
So what happens next after you see this response on LinkedIn?
- [16:01]
D
So, Max, from memory, it was that Sunday afternoon when it began to gather some steam on social media, TikTok X and others. And it was into Monday, which was the most difficult day of that initial six week period. And it will be transparent with your listeners, it was the one and only net negative social sentiment that we faced during the campaign. So that was the day that was toughest and clearly a day I'm talking to our CEO, I'm talking to our team and we're beginning to kind of understand some of this feedback and then beginning to understand where are we going from here and how do we want to react to some of that initial feedback.
- [16:55]
B
And just to, because I think people don't understand like running a, a big brand like this, there's a, when you say net negative, that's not. Is that your sort of intuition or do you have like, you have some to know?
- [17:04]
D
It's all data, Ben. And again, it was interesting because the social sentiment analysis is something that anyone can do in a public forum. It's not like it's proprietary data to American Eagle. There are many different tools that someone can use to, to track how, how a brand or how a person, how an event is tracking. So it was always clear to us that, and I'll be very direct that that Monday was tough. I think it was somewhere in the 70% range of net negative. So that was a tough day for us. But then it swung back on that Tuesday to net positive and continued on that path until this very day. And so, Ben, to your point, you know, we're using real time data to understand what's really happening. You're using data to track social media, you're using data to track your customer, you're using data to track your business performance. And then you are certainly using data to track your advertising performance. And I would think this is. Guys, when I felt like I really was living in alternate universes because on one hand I'm seeing such encouraging performance from a customer business in advertising perspective and of course Wall street as well. But the former three being what I need to look at in my role as Chief Marketing officer. And then of course, you're beginning to see the noise hurling around social media and beginning to take root in what I'll call the mainstream media as well. But it really was like living in parallel universes. And that's why I have found this experience so interesting that how can facts that, that you're looking at be so different than what I view as noise slash myths of, of social media? And again, some of that began to bleed over into the mainstream press as well.
- [19:12]
A
So to bring us back to that Monday, and you said it was your toughest day, what do you do on Monday, as you see the sentiment reflected that way?
- [19:19]
D
Max I had the good fortune of having 1000% from our CEO and our board immediately. They felt that this line of criticism again was absurd and almost offensive for Your listeners to know our chairman and CEO is a very well known Jewish businessman. Jay Schottenstein has been involved in our company for decades. And so for some of the social media noise to go down these paths of Nazism and white supremacy was honestly offensive. And so that allowed me to do a couple things. It allowed me to get into a bunker with a very small group of people and not have to necessarily manage a CEO or manage a board who had trust in us. And so, you know, it was a working group of five or six people. I mean that's how tight it was. We had our amazing and longtime PR agency Shadow with us and then, and then we had some customer insights that we were getting as well to make sure that we were really getting impulse of real America. And, and this is the moment that the crisis communications industrial complex tells you you need to get out there and you need to make a statement and you need to get ahead of the news and go, go, go. And I actually think the smartest thing we ever did was do nothing because it allowed us to really, truly take stock in what was really happening with those brand metrics, with those business metrics, with those customer metrics. And I felt like on Tuesday we were in a good position and again the so called sentiment tide was beginning to turn. It was still very early on and all three of us know that any of these moments can take unforeseen twists and turns. So we were still very much roll up the sleeves and navigate through these waters and but I was feeling more confident as early as Tuesday. And again we probably did the opposite of what these so called crisis comms experts would tell you to do. And that was just say nothing, just continue to go about our business as we originally intended.
- [22:01]
A
Well, we have to take a short break, but we have a lot more to get to with Craig right after this.
- [22:14]
B
This week on our branded segment from Think with Google, I spoke with Google's VP of marketing, Josh Spanier about this year's AI holiday season. So the fourth quarter of the year makes or breaks the business for marketers, advertisers, for media. What's going to be different about Q4 this year, Josh?
- [22:32]
E
I think this is going to be the very first AI driven retail holiday season. It's actually really, really exciting. I'm really positive about the impact that AI is going to have to help marketers do more interesting things, especially with what Google is bringing to the table. We have some incredible scale opportunity for marketers. People shop across Google a billion times a day, a billion. They're doing everything from trying on virtual outfits to shopping things with Google Lens to just looking up prices. And what's really fascinating is 60% of that activity is broad intent. That means it's not tied to a specific brand or a specific product at that moment. An unbelievable opportunity for brands to get in front of their customers as they're going through the shopping journey.
- [23:21]
B
And so how are you responding to that?
- [23:22]
E
At Google, we're making it easier for marketers. Google has launched something called the Power Pack. It's a combination of our most powerful AI and machine learning, our best products, but brought all together. So taking AI max, research, demand gen performance max and bring them together to allow you to run ads through one interface across all of YouTube, all of YouTube shorts, all of discovery, all of Google search. What's great is it's driving higher performance. And if you use these tools individually, good as they are together, they're actually adding up to more than the summer parts and we're seeing much higher performance across customers. I should also mention YouTube. YouTube has always been a place where culture, commerce and creatives come together. It's a really great opportunity for marketers as well.
- [24:06]
B
And where can people find out more about this?
- [24:08]
E
Over at thinkwithgoogle.com, there is the Holiday Essentials Guide. It covers off all these features in the Power Pack. You can learn all about it. Holiday essentials guide on thinkwithgoogle.com home.
- [24:19]
B
Thanks, Josh.
- [24:20]
E
Thanks, Ben.
- [24:35]
A
So at some point over the next few days, this flips from being some people are a little bit upset. They're commenting on your LinkedIn to your campaign is adopted as this cause by the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States.
- [24:48]
F
They have managed to so unhinge themselves over this thing. And it's like, you guys, did you learn nothing from the November 2024 election? Like, I actually thought that one of the lessons they might take is we're going to be less crazy. The lesson they have apparently taken is we're going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful. Great strategy, guys.
- [25:10]
A
All over Fox News, what are the conversations that you're having as that is happening? And when do you start to see that there are some prominent people largely on the political right who are, you know, supporting you as well as some people who seem to be not a part of that camp who are saying like, I'm not seeing the outrage over this. Right?
- [25:29]
D
Yeah, Max, I, I'm not aware of a single Democrat that came out during the course of of, of this heated period and condemned American Eagle or condemned this campaign. So yeah, I, I, I do think that there were certain news outlets that were talking about it more, but I don't think this was again, a political us versus them story. I think that this was common sense and I think that most people looked at this and said, I don't get it.
- [26:00]
B
I think we agree with you in reality. But it did become like, when Vance and Trump and every other Republican are suddenly jumping on this, is that just like awesome gasoline on the fire of sales? Is that like, oh, this is gonna become hyper partisan? How do you think about it?
- [26:15]
D
You know what, I think that's the moment you say, wow, this has now become the national conversation. And my own personal reaction was one of awe. This is already now nine to ten days in and I'm pretty sure that the President commented on the Monday, which again was nine or ten days in. So you're part of me is, aw, I can't believe this has become the national conversation. In the marketing world, it's hard to get anyone's attention, Right? And so if, let's say 20% of Americans knew about our campaign, we'd be high fiving each other. I remember seeing a stat during this that 80% of Americans at that time knew about this campaign. That's incredible. But Ben, I think that's still the moment where we are executing the campaign as originally intended. And you're still looking at real data to make sure that it's still checking for your customer base. It is also the moment you're seeing lots of new customers come into the company. You're seeing double digit traffic comps that are particularly exciting. You're seeing denim sellouts in our stores and online. So you know that the campaign is working. It's hitting a nerve, it's creating momentum for our business.
- [27:45]
A
Do you know who these people are? Like when you're saying new customers are coming into the company and you saw that the stock jumped when Trump tweeted about this. I mean, are these people who are supporters of his, who are like, we want to, you know, we're taking the President's word and we're going to go out and buy American Eagle jeans at the mall.
- [28:03]
D
Max. I found this so interesting because I honestly asked my own team that very question. And when I looked at the data, it shows that we had customer growth in every single county in the US and so there were moments where what I think are some of the more democratic lean cities that New Yorks or the LA's very strongly come out to shop American Eagle. So I really think this was a national phenomenon. I think that the customer growth was pervasive around the country. This was a very widespread phenomenon for American Eagle.
- [28:45]
A
So meanwhile, as this is happening, you are also developing this Travis Kelce campaign. What is his reaction? As you guys are working on that, as this is all bubbling, what is his and his team's reaction?
- [28:58]
D
So you have to remember, Max, that any of these campaigns have been in creation for nine to 12 months, and Travis's was closer to 12 months, because Travis was a true product collaboration. So he was physically in our offices, physically helping our design team come up a product line. I mean, the guy was unbelievably involved. His attention to detail was pretty significant and exciting. And you become true partners in that long period of time. I don't want to speak for him. That's not fair. But in my mind, he knew us. He knew what we stood for. And we were always going to launch the date we were going to launch. So the focus with Travis's team was more around how to maximize that launch as the second part of our fall season story arc. And that's what we were focused on.
- [30:00]
A
Travis Kelce drops his new line with you guys the day after his engagement to Taylor Swift, which is incredible timing for you guys. I believe that you guys said that you did not know about this in advance, but you did just mention, of course, that you had discussed, you know, you were talking with his team about timing and things like that. Did you have an idea that this was going to be happening? Did you think that there was going to be some sort of big news that was going to be happening this day? And that's why it had to be timed. Then take us behind that, Max.
- [30:31]
D
I promise your listeners the launch date was the launch date was the launch date. And always was, something this big is planned out many months in advance. And so, no, we had absolutely no idea of what Travis was doing in his personal life. I will tell you the story of how I did find out about it. I was in my office in New York City. I was actually talking to our chief legal counsel about a completely different matter. And I began to hear screaming and shouting and joyous yells and even people hugging each other. And I'm thinking, what is possibly going on? And our department assistant had to knock on my door and say, craig, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but Travis and Taylor have just announced their engagement. And I just. You have to imagine, guys, what I had been through at that point. Now Four to five weeks. And this is like another plot twist that, you know, you do not see coming. And obviously this one for the very much positive, super happy for Travis, who is such a kind, authentic, and real guy. And then obviously, you know, I have to put on my CMO hat and say this was the best timing in the history of all timings of launches. Right. So that was unbelievable, but it really was unscripted.
- [31:57]
B
Yeah, I guess the other possible theory is that he chose the engagement date in order to sell more jeans.
- [32:02]
A
Exactly.
- [32:02]
D
Well, if he did, I will thank him someday in the future. But that was definitely not in the plan. But of course, then the world goes crazy, right? You know, we're already in the headlines and still zipping around the social sphere. And then the headlines are like, oh, my goodness, how did American Eagle pull this one off? And that sets out yet another round of exciting, breathless coverage and reaction.
- [32:34]
A
So, looking forward, I believe there was something that I was reading, something somewhere that said that Sydney Sweeney was still signed on to be the brand ambassador for you guys through the rest of the year. Do you try to continue this partnership into next year? What does that look like?
- [32:49]
D
We've loved to partner with Sydney, and while I don't have any new news for the audience today, I can promise you that she sells jeans. And when the going got tough, Sydney was super solid. And I just am proud to call her a partner. And she stood by us. We definitely stand by her. And it'll be interesting to see what develops in the future.
- [33:19]
A
So actually, I want to ask you a question on that as well. What are your conversations like with her and her team during this kind of whirlwind, you know, 10 day period? I mean, what are those conversations like? Take us behind the scenes there.
- [33:30]
D
Well, Max, as you can imagine, those conversations are confidential. But I think that the leading story there remained is we knew what we were trying to accomplish together. It was always about the jeans. Most Americans thought it was about the jeans. The campaign was really having a profound and positive impact on our brand and our business. And that was the true north of our relationship through the last 10 weeks.
- [34:00]
B
I feel like I often cover and talk to people who are really afraid of controversy. And it does seem like you and obviously Sydney Sweeney really have an appetite for it, which is good for our business. So we appreciate that.
- [34:12]
D
It.
- [34:12]
A
Yeah.
- [34:13]
D
Ben in. And I think controversy paints it in a different light. The goal here was to create the IT genes campaign of 2025. It was not to create the most controversial campaign of 2025. It was not to jump into the cultural wars of 2025. So that were things that happened. It really was to create the jeans campaign that was going to be the most memorable and of this important season. And then to move product, like that's my job. I don't get to sit in the seat for very long if I'm not moving product. And that really was the focus. And I think none other than if we're on Taylor Swift. None other than Taylor Swift I think said something that really I found relatable. She was basically saying that people are projecting themselves onto the creative for her new album.
- [35:09]
A
And.
- [35:09]
D
And I felt like that was our experience through this. People were projecting themselves onto this campaign and there were different ways in to the campaign depending on where you sat. And I found that really interesting, but also really instructive for our roadmap going forward in 2026 and beyond is that you want to people to react and the reaction says as much about them as it says about us. And I think where we stuck this landing was our reaction to the reaction really was we're gonna do our thing and then you can keep on talking about it in whatever way you want to. And so I think that is going to be the ultimate story of the first couple months of this.
- [36:08]
A
Well, Craig, that feels like a really great place for us to end. We really appreciate you walking us through this whole saga. It was really fascinating to watch from the outside and even more interesting to get from you from the inside. So we really appreciate it.
- [36:22]
D
Thanks Max and Ben. We finally got there. I appreciated you reaching out during the height of the height, but I think this is actually even a more interesting story because we can really tell what was really going on for the first time.
- [36:35]
B
Yeah, we really appreciate your telling it to us. So thank you, Craig.
- [36:37]
D
Thanks guys.
- [36:45]
B
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- [37:15]
A
You know, I got a nice note from our former guest Jonah Weiner from Blackbird Spy Plane, who said that he really liked the innovation of this podcast that basically we interview the guests and then afterwards we talk about them like as if you know someone who has just been to dinner with you has just left and you're like, so that was kind of weird. Or, you know, when you're, like, leaving a wedding and you're going home and you're like, well, that part was cool. And what was going on with that? That and that, that's kind of something that we've inadvertently done here, which I think is, that is actually pretty cool. So. And I think that this is a really good opportunity to kind of dig into some of the stuff that Craig was saying, because I thought it was all really interesting. I thought he was a pretty good sport with us, and I think he revealed as much as he probably could. I don't know. Ben, what'd you think?
- [37:57]
B
Yeah, I mean, I thought, well, your questions, I thought, I mean, indicated a certain level of, like, cynicism or that, like, maybe they had this all planned. Like, did you buy that? They were just totally blindsided.
- [38:08]
A
It's interesting. I, I think they obviously knew that this was going to be, that this was gonna raise some sort of controversy. I mean, you, you picked at the, like, okay, we thought maybe people would think Sydney Saweeney, when he said provocative.
- [38:21]
B
He wouldn't quite elaborate, but I, I, I believe him. They didn't think it was gonna be about eugenics, but, but there was something else. And Sydney Sweeney is such a lightning rod.
- [38:28]
A
I mean, thing is, you're putting the word jeans in it, right? So you got to know, like, if somebody is not in the meeting saying, like, hey, like, I don't know, what do we think about the idea of good jeans? Like, maybe that's fine, and it obviously worked out quite well for them. But at the same time, I definitely think nobody, nobody goes into an ad campaign thinking, like, unless you're like Mike Lindell from the MyPillow Company thinking that, like, Trump is going to be tweeting about you.
- [38:52]
B
Right. Or you're going to get some crazy bank shot where, like, a few liberals get upset and then the entire conservative movement rallies around you. Nobody is that clever.
- [39:00]
A
Yeah. And, you know, I think that they made a very clear effort by trying to get some partnerships with Travis Kelce and with, with Sydney Sweeney. They are kind of trying to send a particular message. And I think even the idea that they're like, American Eagle, Right. Like, very much tied to what represents America. And so I understand where some of the kind of initial skepticism of this came from.
- [39:26]
B
Right. There's like, a nostalgic cultural vibe in there that isn't, that is not maga, but resonates with MAGA a little bit.
- [39:33]
A
Yeah. And I Mean, the fact that they decided to choose two all American, you know, people or two prominent white celebrities who are relatively apolitical. I mean, Travis very much did not have Kamala Harris on his podcast. I think that they were trying to choose people who could resonate with a wide swath, you know, of conservative America, certainly. And I think that it works. Worked brilliantly in that way.
- [39:55]
B
But obviously, I mean, what an incredible marketing coup. Like, there just are not a lot of campaigns that get talked about this much that are not disasters these days. And I thought, actually, to me, the most interesting thing he said was this whole. The Crisis Comms Industrial complex. I know some of our listeners are employees of the Crisis Comms Industrial complex. And there is a bit of a playbook, and there's somebody who comes in, and I've been on both sides of these situations. I'm usually causing the crisis. But, you know, who comes in is like, okay, we know how to deal with this. We know how to deal. We're gonna, like, feed them hamburgers so we don't become the hamburger. There's all sorts of cliches, and there was just something, there's something so old school about we're just gonna, like, cause a massive firestorm and then we're gonna refuse to talk about it. Like, I kind of admire that. I like that.
- [40:40]
A
The other kind of point that I think is interesting here is, like, I don't think this was, like, a major television campaign, even though I'm sure this aired in, you know, in some places. This clearly was built for the Internet, and it was built to kind of. And, and you heard it from Craig himself, where he was talking about, like, you know, we have to be kind of like media companies. Right. The attention economy, it's really difficult. And so I, I. There's just no way in the world that they didn't think that this was going to have some sort of kind of impact. Yeah, just I don't think that they were necessarily expecting, right. J.D. vance, to be, you know, talking about how hot Sydney Sweeney is or whatever he, you know, was doing.
- [41:15]
B
Yeah. But if you are a media company, if what you're trying to do is cut through social media, really see that as primary. You just got to dial things up to 11. Right. Like, that is what, you know, every Hollywood producer, every TikTok influencer does.
- [41:28]
A
Well, Ben, thanks again for bothering Craig and holding him accountable and getting him to come on our show. That was really, really interesting.
- [41:34]
B
I'm glad we finally did our sort of, you know, our struggle session with him. That was great.
- [41:39]
A
Well, that is it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore. Our show this week is Produced by Chris McLeod of Blue Elevator Productions, along with our regular producer, Shina Ozaki. Special thanks Josh Billenson, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Kaur. Our engineer is Rick Kwan and our theme music is by Billy Libby. Our public editor is the New York Stock Exchange, which will tell us whether or not this was a successful episode.
- [42:12]
B
If you like the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
- [42:16]
A
And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.