A common marketing tactic used by brands and companies is partnering up with popular celebrities in advertisements. Getting them to endorse their products so fans will feel more inclined to buy said products.

One company that did this recently was American Eagle, who partnered with American actress Sydney Sweeney who has played many mainstream roles such as Cassie from popular Max show Euphoria and the female lead role in Anyone but You. This ad got mixed reviews and very quickly sparked controversy.

Around the same time as the Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle debacle, global girl group sensations Katseye partnered with GAP, receiving very opposite reactions from the internet. Fans thoroughly enjoyed the ad and went as far as saying it is better than the Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle advertisements that just came out weeks prior.

So how is it that the internet is able to unanimously agree with one another that the Katseye and GAP collab was way more effective, enjoyable, and better at selling the product than the Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle ad?

The actors behind the advertisements play a big role in this. Sydney Sweeney is already a very controversial figure, due to speculation that she is conservative and a Trump supporter.

Not only that, many women feel as though she is appealing more to the male gaze for attention and money even though she has stated otherwise, her actions do not support her claims.

A prior collaboration Sweeny did with soap and deodorant brand Dr. Squatch, where in said collaboration, the company created soap bars containing Sydney Sweeney’s bath water.

Obviously the internet was put off by this, many claiming that Sydney Sweeny is setting back ‘feminism’ with this move. Her pandering to her degenerate male fanbase by objectifying herself to get money when she herself has gone on to say that she didn’t want to be seen for her body, and wanted to be noticed for her acting skills instead.

On the other hand, Katseye has grown immensely popular in such little time, after releasing their hit single ‘Gnarly’ on April 30, 2025 garnering millions of views in just their first couple of days after release. Many of their other songs have become trending and the girl group has been rapidly growing in fame.

The group has a predominantly female fanbase, and even some of the members have gone on to say that they are bisexual or not straight. Lara Raj and Megan Skiendel who both publicly announced on livestreams that they are indeed part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Not only are the members just conventionally attractive they are also incredibly talented, the ad itself has a whole choreography performance to Kellis ‘Milkshake’ complete with background dancers and professional camerawork. Not only is the performance fun and interesting to watch, it also works to show off the jeans in action, showing future consumers the comfortability and practicality of the jeans.

It’s not just the fact that people just don’t like Sydney Sweeney because they think she’s ‘cringe’ or untalented, the ad also performed badly due to the weird message that it had.

A common complaint with the ad is the tone of voice Sweeney uses, she talks husky and strangely, trying to come off as ‘sexy’ but in turn just making it hard to understand her without captions. This came off as strange to viewers since it’s an ad for women’s clothing, so why is she appealing to her male fanbase when they are not the target demographic for these products.

The advertisement also seems to try to do a fun play on the words ‘jeans’ and ‘genes’ by talking about Sydney Sweeney’s genes and how supposedly “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” which could also be interrupted as “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” This set off a lot of viewers because Sydney Sweeny is a pretty white girl with blue eyes, making it sound like the ad is praising Sweeny’s ‘genes’ because she is white. Making fans speculate that American Eagle is promoting ‘white supremacy’ in their ad, even though it was most likely done unintentionally it still is weird that they went with this slogan and made many fans feel uncomfortable.

The Katseye x GAP campaign is leagues better at getting the attention of fans and non-fan consumers and convincing them to buy the product than the Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle collaboration for a multitude of reasons.

Further showing how much the internet has changed over the years and what people want to see on their advertisements.