Well, American Eagle crawled out of bed this morning and decided to go moon exploring (again). Shares are currently up 30% after their Q2 earnings report backed up the Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans ad and the Travis Kelce partnership, which just so happened to be perfectly timed with his engagement. But the real story here is AE’s CMO and his exciting victory speech.

On the earnings call, Craig Brommers danced to the mic and essentially said, “Wow what a great six weeks it has been. People are calling me (very smart people, the smartest) saying they’ve never seen anything like it. Rue21? Total disaster, very sad, everyone knows it. But Sydney Sweeney, beautiful naturals, some of the best we’ve ever seen, maybe the best in history, carried sales higher than anyone thought possible. Nobody believed we could do it (nobody) but we did, we broke records, records no one has ever broken in retail, not even close.”

In all seriousness, the earnings report proved the Sydney Sweeney campaign wasn’t just hype… it was a sales catalyst that actually showed up in the numbers. Launched in July, it clocked 40 billion impressions, lit up the Vegas Sphere, and plastered 3D billboards across Times Square and Los Angeles. Within a week, her signature jeans sold out. And get this: search interest for American Eagle spiked 186% in early August, and website traffic rose 15% from June to July. Which again, proves it wasn’t only (memes and retweets) customers were actually showing up and buying.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

Of course, not everyone was thrilled. Some critics labeled the ad tone-deaf, while others argued the “great genes” pun veered uncomfortably close to a high school biology lecture. But when Trump is logging onto Truth Social to declare your campaign “the HOTTEST ad out there,” controversy starts to feel less like a problem and more like free national marketing.

Then came the unofficial prince of America, Travis Kelce. Just as his engagement to Taylor Swift was flooding every tabloid cover and TikTok feed, AE rolled out a collab with his Tru Kolors lifestyle brand. The timing couldn’t have been better. The partnership had people talking, shopping, and in plenty of cases buying jeans they didn’t really need… just so they could randomly drop, “Yeah, Taylor’s man and I wear the same stuff.”

Financially, the quarter didn’t blow the roof off, but it didn’t need to. Net income landed at $77.6 million, essentially flat from last year but still ahead of expectations. Revenue slipped 1% to $1.28 billion, yet that was better than analysts projected. Comparable sales were down 1% overall, with the core AE brand slipping 3% while Aerie managed to climb 3%. So essentially, the campaigns plugged enough holes to keep the business on track.

So now American Eagle finds itself in rarefied retail air, riding the bizarre but undeniable combo of Sydney Sweeney’s denim dominance and Travis Kelce’s fairytale engagement. For a company that yanked its sales forecast in May because it couldn’t figure out what shoppers were going to do, this is about as big of a turnaround as you can script. For every retailer and clothing company, you have no excuses now, you have the script. Popular celebrity (preferably attractive) + controversial ad angle = relevance.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.