Controversy Usually Ends With Revenue.
Your brand doesn’t need safe. Safe is boring. Safe is invisible. Safe is the default path to irrelevance.
When your instinct is to issue a press release, apologize, retreat, “clarify the intent,” and tone everything down, that’s the moment your brand is getting eaten alive. What you really need is conviction, nerve, and a willingness to absorb backlash that isn’t aimed at your customers.
Here’s how the AE / Sydney Sweeney debacle (and rebirth) shows you exactly why doubling down, not folding, is the reckoning move.
The Setup: a campaign that lights the fuse
In July 2025, American Eagle launched an ad campaign starring Sydney Sweeney with the tagline “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” On the surface, it’s cheeky, playful, a denim brand doing what it does best, promoting jeans. But AE layered in a pun: “jeans” / “genes.” One of the teaser clips had her talking about heredity and traits (hair color, eye color, personality), then pivoting to say, “my jeans are blue.”
Cue the cultural grenade. Critics accused the campaign of being sexist, objectifying, or worse: tone‑deaf about race, beauty standards, and, some claimed, echoing eugenics by celebrating “great genes.” The outrage crescendoed fast, with pundits and culture warriors piling on.
Now, most brands in that position do what corporate crisis manuals tell you to: issue a mea culpa, pull the campaign, redo it, grovel, rebrand. But AE’s CEO Jay Schottenstein told his people: “Hold tight.”
He forbade reactive commentary. He didn’t bend. He commanded a small team track sentiment. He monitored data, not raging social threads. He leaned into the fact that most of the noise was coming from people who weren’t his customers. He stood by the campaign.
In his words: “You can’t run from fear.”
That’s the kind of line your marketing guts should aspire to.
Why playing it safe kills you (stealth mode)
Let me break this down. There are four reasons playing safe is the death of brand ambition.
1. The outrage machine is broken as a signal system
Outrage doesn’t equal majority. Loud voices dominate social media algorithms, but that doesn’t mean they represent your target. AE found that the negativity was fueled by small accounts and then amplified by political media. They did polling. They measured real customer reaction. Turns out, very few were offended. The campaign delivered more customers.
If you always backpedal at the first sign of voice, you end up optimizing for outrage — not for customers.
2. Safe is timelessly boring
Every brand is trying to be “not offensive.” Everyone wants a wedge that doesn’t poke too much. But in a sea of benign beige, brands with boundaries win hearts. Boldness creates heat. People talk about them. The risk is your lifeline. AE’s campaign, for all its controversy, cut through.
3. Conviction is a magnet
People crave meaning. When a brand stands its ground (and shows they understand their audience), people trust it more. AE didn’t try to appease everyone. They focused on serving those who’d buy their jeans. The tribe rallied. That’s how you turn critics into noise and supporters into evangelists.
4. Marketing without balls is just communications
If your marketing is just safe “messages,” you’re not doing marketing you’re doing PR. You’re responding, defending, walking back, afraid of your own shadow. Real marketing moves hearts, challenges norms, ignites interest. It demands risk.
What AE’s outcome tells us
Let’s not romanticize the war, AE’s path won’t always work. But what they achieved gives us lessons:
They sold out the featured jeans within a week.
They brought in nearly one million new customers over the next few months.
Their stock responded, investors saw their boldness as strength.
The brand fortified its connection to Gen Z, who felt AE understood them more than critics did.
Was everything perfect? No. Foot traffic dipped briefly (along with peers in the category) and some metrics were flatter than expected. Some battle scars will always exist in the data. But as Mark Ritson argued, pundits miss that “you are not the consumer.” Many critics were too old to be in AE’s target. What mattered was whether the market, not the keyboard warriors, responded.
So: how do you not play safe — with safeguards
Bold doesn’t mean reckless. Here’s a playbook (Saul‑style) you can steal:
Start from your truths, not current sensitivities. Know who you are. Know your edge. Speak from that, not from fear of someone’s tweet.
Vet with the people who matter. Use real quantitative + qualitative research. Poll your customers. Use small holdouts. Don’t rely on social media sentiment nor executive gut alone.
Have a crisis play ahead of time. Plan “if X happens, we do Y.” But the play is to stand firm, not to default to apology mode.
Ignore the noise. Don’t engage every critic. Don’t try to clarify meaning to every single voice. Amplify what matters.
Double down on what works. If customers respond, inject more. If metrics decline meaningfully, adjust, but don’t fold at the first fire.
Use the backlash as fuel. Let the critics talk, they’ll drive eyeballs. You get to be the brand with backbone.
Keep your tribe in focus. Your customers aren’t the outrage fanatics. They’re the buyers. Serve them, not the pundits.
The emotional stakes: Laugh / Think / Cry test
Whenever you propose a bold idea, run it through Laugh / Think / Cry (as taught in my book):
Laugh: is there a spark of delight, surprise, wit? If safe, there’s no spark.
Think: does it provoke insight or mental friction? If all smooth and “safe,” no one thinks.
Cry: does it touch something real, visceral, human? If yes, it’s dangerous, and that’s exactly where marketing wins.
“Don’t play it safe.” That sentence alone is nothing. But when you embody it, when your campaign punches into tension, doesn’t back down, stays anchored in your identity, people lean in. They remember.
Schottenstein didn’t cave when the world screamed. He saw the screaming as distraction. He bet on his customers and his brand. And when you don’t fear noise, you harness it...and if you don't know how hire The Idea Integration Co. Inc. cause this is our specialty.