New Poll Reveals How Americans Really Feel About Sydney Sweeney’s AE Ad

Sydney Sweeney seemingly angered a handful of internet users when American Eagle released their new ad featuring the actress, in which she made a “jeans/genes” pun.

However, a recent poll has revealed how Americans truly feel about the ad, showing the percentage of people who found it offensive.

Sydney Sweeney has since received support from notable figures like President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, following reports that she’s a registered Republican.

After garnering backlash on the internet for an American Eagle ad campaign she featured in late last month, many might think that Americans hold the same impression of Sydney Sweeney’s ad in real life, but it appears to be quite the opposite.

According to the New York Post, a new survey by the Economist/YouGov Polls has shed light on the public’s reaction to the ad campaign, revealing a surprising lack of interest.

Despite the viral critiques, the poll found that only 12% of Americans felt offended by the ad, while the majority said they found it clever or had no opinion whatsoever.

Nearly 4 out of 10 people, which translates to 39% of the respondents, said they saw the ad as clever, 12% called it offensive, 40% said it was neither, and 8% were unsure.

The survey, conducted among 1,635 adults, also discovered a significant difference in how the ad was perceived by men and women, revealing that men were more likely to see it as clever (49% to 31%).

In contrast, women were more likely to see it as offensive (17% versus 7% of men).

According to the poll results, there was also a division along political lines as Republicans resonated more with it, far more than Democrats.

57% of Republicans surveyed reportedly called the campaign clever, compared to 22% of Democrats.

As seen in the demographic breakdown, age may have also influenced the respondents’ reactions, as 34% of people aged 65 and above found it clever, against 13% who called it offensive.

For the younger adults aged 18-29, 45% thought it was clever, while 12% were offended by it.

The poll further revealed that women were more likely to view the ad negatively than men.

The campaign, which launched last month, saw the popular “Euphoria” star come under fire for a “jeans/genes” wordplay that many argued supports eugenics and white supremacist rhetoric.

At first, only a handful of individuals registered their dissatisfaction with the ad. However, the online outrage quickly escalated when conservative accounts began to pitch it as an example of progressive overreaction on social media.

President Donald Trump, upon hearing that Sweeney was a registered Republican, declared that he thinks “her ad is fantastic,” going on to describe it as anti-woke. Vice President Vance even used the controversy to attack Democrats when he appeared on the “Ruthless” podcast.

“Did you learn nothing from the November 2024 election?” Vance said. “The lesson they’ve apparently taken is, ‘We’re going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful.'”

American Eagle has since issued a statement, insisting that the campaign had no racist intent behind it and that it was all about jeans.

“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” the denim brand said in a statement.

It continued, “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

Many fans went out of their way to support the company, explaining that they didn’t see how the campaign had a racist undertone.

It appears that the Sydney Sweeney ad controversy has had a negative effect on the fashion company.

According to Forbes, data shared by retail data company Pass_by shows that foot traffic at American Eagle’s outlets dipped 9% year-over-year for the week beginning August 3.

For the week starting July 27, foot traffic saw a decline by 3.9%, while traffic dipped just 0.27% for the week beginning July 20.

Two months before July, when the incident happened, foot traffic increased year-over-year each week, with American Eagle seeing a boost in year-over-year foot traffic of 4.85% for the week of July 13 and 5.91% for the week of July 6.