Is it the end of woke advertising?

I was on Glenn Beck’s radio show yesterday talking about the return of normie capitalism, as signaled by American Eagle Outfitters’ new jeans campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney.

I also wrote a piece for The Blaze on it here.

Below is my slightly longer take on the same subject.

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Youth retailer American Eagle just launched a new ad campaign featuring hottie it-girl Sydney Sweeney of Euphoria and well-endowed fame. With the campaign launch featuring the bombshell known for her curves and come hither looks the stock jumped 15%.

There is nothing revolutionary in the ad world about the idea that hot girls leaning on muscle cars sell jeans. Hot girls in jeans can sell anything really. I mean who could forget 1992’s Pepsi ad featuring Cindy Crawford at the gas station, in jeans and a white tank top? There is no Gen Xer on the planet who doesn’t remember this ad.

Whatever American Eagle paid Sweeney, it was worth it. The company’s market cap jumped $400 million in one day after a stock price decline of 47% in the past year. After years of hocking body positivity, it appears hot girl summer is the way to go.

It’s a major about-face after more than a decade of jean, car and beer brands forcing wokeness down our gullets. But at the end of the day sex sells and pretty girls with sexy stares can sell everything from men’s deodorant to the WNBA – if only they had more Sophie Cunninghams!

CK Jeans made sexy their stock-in-trade over 40 years ago. In 1980, the premium jeans brand gave us Brooke Shields seductively whispering "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."

She was 15 and it was sordid and problematic in so many ways that I won’t get into here.

But these early 80s ads with Shields ushered in decades of hot girls in jeans (of age girls for the most part, thankfully) advertising.

We got Kate Moss naked from the waist up in CK Jeans and Anna Nicole Smith doing her best Marilyn Monroe impression for GUESS.

Sexy even spilled over into men’s and seductive male models had their heyday in the 1990s. We got Marky Mark in CK Jeans (often paired with Moss) and Lucky Vanous as a hunky shirtless construction worker being ogled by office ladies in an ad for Diet Coke. Turns out women like looking at attractive people too.

Then Abercrombie and Fitch gave sexy a twist with preppy hot girls and guys, shirtless in black and white Bruce Weber photography. That brand and their CEO Mike Jeffries got so obsessed with sexy that they were sued for only hiring good looking people as sales associates in their stores. Yeah, not good.

Then wokeness took hold of corporate America. And Budweiser told us Dylan Mulvaney — a trans identified man — dressed like Audrey Hepburn was what we really wanted. And CK told us that overweight non-binary hairy chested men in bras was what we truly desired.

We disagreed.

Bud Light took their notorious nosedive, losing more than half of their once dominant market share and dropping from the number one beer to number 3 in the United States. Bud Light’s sales have declined more than 20% per year since the Mulvaney incident in 2023.

But after years of brand destroying body positivity and “inclusive” marketing, normies took the wheel at American Eagle and their sales and stock price soared. The brand is back and relying on the formula as old as advertising itself: hotness.

Here's the thing: Men like looking at hot women leaning on cars and drinking soda — doing anything really; and women like looking at hot women and hot guys wearing jeans and doing tough guy construction tasks while drinking Diet Coke.

As Clay Travis has said — “the only two things I 100% believe in are the First Amendment and boobs.” We can gasp and pretend that is a controversial statement but he only said what we all know to be true. Boobs are a reliable winner. And despite all the pretending about not caring about looks, breast augmentation is experiencing a compound annual growth rate of 13% per year since 2020.

It’s such a relief to go back to normie brand marketing. Brands can further normal ideas to normal people and not feel bad about it anymore. And we can let it wash over us in all of its visual pleasantness.

Speaking of normal ideas, Nike has done an about face as well. Just last week they featured a series of ads with British Open winner Scottie Scheffler touting family values.

There’s an old adage in advertising. Always include a cut away shot of a dog or a baby. Cuteness, like hotness, sells. And nothing is cuter than golf champ Scheffler with his baby. Men with babies are sure fire gold.

This touting of family values is on the heels of Nike also pushing Dylan Mulvaney on us but rather than dress him as Audrey Hepburn, Nike put him in a sports bra. Without any boobs at all.

Are we to believe that Nike has shed itself of this wokeness?

I think what’s more likely is Nike was never really woke anyway.

Nike’s mantra is money. And they will abandon Mulvaney as fast as you can say Just Do It if it means reversing their sales decline.

There is nothing remotely inclusive or ‘body positive’ about Sweeney. And I suspect other brands will take note.

I for one am looking forward to a new crop of ads where brands completely memory-hole body positivity and garden variety wokeness. I suspect the brands that have been chasing social justice through advertising which only served to tank sales are relieved as well.

Here’s some more Sydney: