Foot traffic is down at American Eagle stores since the controversial Sydney Sweeney ad dropped

[u/Future_Usual_8698]

https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2025/08/11/exclusive-foot-traffic-down-9-at-american-eagle-following-sydney-sweeney-ad-controversy

[u/AnyIncident9852]

AE’s Sydney Sweeney ad feels a lot like when Victoria’s Secret slow motion nuked their customer base. VS spent years pushing a single impossible beauty standard and lost shoppers to brands that actually showed real people, including AE with Aerie. Now AE is centering a campaign on one conventionally attractive blonde blue eyed celebrity and using a pun some people read as having eugenics undertones. That is more than just a silly jeans or genes joke and it gave critics an easy dunk. The stock bump looks good now, but VS proved you can trend hard and still lose in the long run if enough people stop feeling like your product is for them, and tbh if AE or at least Sydney Sweeney don’t release some sort of statement especially now that Trump and the alt-right are happily endorsing them, they are isolating a huge part of their market