Sydney Sweeney's advertising campaigns generate controversy and buzz almost instantly, but sales data suggests her impact on brands tends to fade quickly. At American Eagle, the initial surge lost momentum, while Dr. Squatch saw no sustained increase in direct sales. Now, sports betting platform Novig is betting big on Sweeney, hoping the publicity will translate into a significant, lasting commercial impact.
Few celebrity campaigns can generate controversy and buzz as quickly as those featuring Sydney Sweeney. But data published by advertising and marketing website Adweek suggests that brands have a harder time demonstrating a long-term return on their investment.
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Sydney Sweeney. She also received an equity stake in Novig as part of the campaign
(Photo: Screenshot)
In September, just over a year after American Eagle was forced to defend its "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans" campaign against accusations of racist undertones, Sweeney appeared nude in Novig's "Just Sports" campaign, drawing criticism from female athletes.
Another provocative ad followed in October, and this week, Novig expanded the campaign this week, offering users a chance to win a share of what it described as Sydney Sweeney’s $250,000 betting account ahead of what is known as the "sports equinox," when the major U.S. football, basketball, hockey and baseball leagues all have games on the same day.
The prediction market platform has already seen some early successes. Sweeney's two videos have garnered approximately 100 million views on Instagram. The Wall Street Journal reported that Novig has since raised funding at a valuation of $2 billion, up from $500 million at the beginning of the year.
The company also said the number of first-time depositors on its platform surged by more than 218% in the 20 days following the release of the first ad, compared with the preceding 20 days.
Novig did not respond to Adweek's request for comment, but the brand has made a long-term commitment to Sweeney, granting her an undisclosed equity stake in the company.
American Eagle's ups and downs
American Eagle's numbers illustrate both sides of the equation. The brand's first campaign with Sweeney launched in July 2025, and despite the controversy, the retailer was quick to declare it a success.
Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers said the partnership brought in 790,000 new U.S. customers within six weeks. In the third quarter of 2025, the brand's comparable-store sales rose 1%, following a 3% decline in the previous quarter.
By November 2025, American Eagle had gone from losing market share to gaining more than 90 basis points year over year in the family apparel category, according to Consumer Edge, a company that analyzes U.S. credit and debit card transactions.
Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle's 2025 campaign
(Photo: American Eagle)
But Sweeney was not the only celebrity working with the brand at the time. In late August, American Eagle also launched a campaign featuring Travis Kelce.
During a December 2025 earnings call, Jennifer Foyle, president of the American Eagle and Aerie brands, said the two campaigns had generated a combined 44 billion impressions and that customer loyalty had increased 4% during the quarter.
Michael Gunther, senior vice president of research and market intelligence at Consumer Edge, said the most pronounced improvement in spending came during the 2025 holiday shopping season.
In March, parent company American Eagle Outfitters reported record holiday-quarter sales of $1.8 billion, along with a 2% increase in American Eagle's comparable-store sales.
But when American Eagle brought Sweeney back for a follow-up campaign, "Syd for Short," in April, the boost was already beginning to fade.
In the first quarter of 2026, American Eagle's comparable-store sales fell 2%, even as comparable sales across the parent company rose 8%, driven by a 25% surge at sister brand Aerie.
In the earnings release, CEO Jay Schottenstein acknowledged that "results at American Eagle were mixed" and said the company was working to "reignite the women's business."
The follow-up Sweeney campaign failed to generate similar momentum. The latest earnings report, released in September, showed that American Eagle's comparable-store sales were still down 1% in the second quarter of 2026, a slight improvement from the first quarter.
An American Eagle spokesperson declined to comment on the "Sweeney effect," citing the company's quiet period ahead of its third-quarter earnings release.
Mixed results for Dr. Squatch
In June 2025, nearly 1 million fans entered a contest held by soap brand Dr. Squatch for a chance to win one of 100 bars of "Bathwater Bliss" soap made with Sweeney's actual bathwater.
In an earlier commercial, Sweeney teasingly addressed viewers as "dirty little boys," while the limited-edition bathwater soap was marketed with a scent called "Morning Wood," a sexual double entendre.
Reactions to the promotion ranged from praise to disgust. But John Ludeke, then Dr. Squatch's vice president of global marketing, told Adweek that the unconventional campaign was designed to cut through the advertising clutter and attract the attention of both male and female consumers.
Dr. Squatch said the promotion led to a 20% jump in revenue compared with the previous week. However, according to Consumer Edge's card transaction data, the brand's share of the beauty products market shrank by as much as 25 basis points in the two months following the campaign.
Sydney Sweeney's bathwater soap campaign
(Photo: Social media)
Gunther noted that Consumer Edge tracks only purchases made directly from Dr. Squatch. Its data does not show what consumers buy at Walmart, Target or Amazon, or whether the campaign drove shoppers to physical store shelves rather than the brand's website.
Unilever, which acquired Dr. Squatch for approximately $1.5 billion in September 2025, does not report the brand's financial results separately.
According to Women's Wear Daily (WWD), Dr. Squatch had annual sales exceeding $400 million at the time of the acquisition. However, bar soap, the product at the center of Sweeney's promotion, remains a weak spot.
During Unilever's first-quarter earnings call in April, CEO Fernando Fernandez noted "some slowdown in Dr. Squatch's bar soap business," but forecast double-digit growth for the brand.
All eyes on Sweeney
Sweeney generates enormous attention on social media, but most of the conversation focuses on her rather than the brands she represents.
Between September and mid-October, analytics company Meltwater recorded 1.9 million mentions of "Sydney Sweeney" across Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Reddit and other major platforms.
That figure was not far below the 2.29 million mentions recorded in the five weeks following the launch of American Eagle's jeans commercial.
The brands themselves attracted far less attention. Only 65,500 posts mentioned Sweeney and Novig together during that period, compared with 601,000 posts mentioning her alongside American Eagle in 2025.
Novig may be a smaller brand, but for now, Sweeney is attracting more attention than the companies paying her.