Brands love to believe they know their audience. But when culture pushes back, it’s rarely subtle. Ralph Lauren’s Oak Bluffs collection became a cultural celebration (especially for Black consumers) that propelled the company’s stock to an all-time high. While American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney denim campaign sparked fast and furious backlash from the very Gen Z and millennial consumers it was designed to woo. Hot take: perhaps leveraging the male gaze to sell to post-Me Too era women, many of whom are actively decentering men in their lives at the moment, is not the flex someone thought it would be.
To slice through the noise, TheJembe conducted a survey asking consumers about their perceptions regarding culture, brand campaigns, and authenticity. The results don’t just tell us what audiences liked and what they didn’t. They chart, in real time, the distinct difference between brands that actually listen to culture and those that try to skip the homework, and still expect a gold star.
When we asked respondents about the importance of brand messaging reflecting cultural sensitivity and awareness, nearly 48 percent of respondents listed “attention to culture” as very important. Meanwhile, 39 percent indicated they wait to see if a brand apologizes when a cultural misstep is made in a campaign. American Eagle finally did address the controversy, but it wasn’t exactly an apology. When you find yourself trying to explain a so-called “joke” again, you’ve already lost, and maybe it was never a thing to begin with.
Yes, Sydney Sweeney is an A-list-adjacent name, but star power without cultural grounding is just noise, and consumers, especially Gen Z, do not want to hear it. Ralph Lauren didn’t need a megawatt face to make the Oak Bluffs collection resonate. American Eagle leaned hard on celebrity glow and ended up with accusations of racism and flirting with eugenics in an already charged political climate.
So, what could have been done differently with the American Eagle Sydney Sweeney campaign to make it feel more inclusive and culturally thoughtful to consumers? In our survey, 34 percent of respondents stated that avoiding the type of wordplay that could be seen as harmful would have been a good first step. There’s clever wordplay that actually catches fire for the right reasons, and then there’s playing with fire and then pretending to be surprised when you get singed.
While our survey did not ask respondents to directly compare the Ralph Lauren Oak Bluffs collection and the American Eagle Sweeney campaigns, we did ask an important question that sums up how consumers view messaging from a cultural perspective. When asked what makes a brand’s campaign feel culturally authentic, our survey found that 47 percent of respondents stated that “a clear connection to heritage, history, or lived experience’ was at the top of the list. The contrast couldn’t be clearer. One brand leaned in with deeply rooted cultural fluency, under the leadership of a Black creative director. The other tried to borrow cool without earning it, and got caught in a web of lazy wordplay and outdated references (the Brooke Shields/Calvin Klein jeans ad that the campaign gave a nod to was also viewed as problematic in its time, by the way).
Our data makes one thing undeniable: cultural insights aren’t just a throwaway accessory to marketing strategy—they are the strategy. Ralph Lauren reaped the rewards of listening. American Eagle is paying the cost of horribly misreading the room and doubling down on their messaging. For brands, the message is sharp– culture is no longer just a backdrop for your campaigns, to be sprinkled over the top like performative fairy dust before you hit send. It’s the stage, the script, and the critic’s review. Ignore it, and you risk being remembered not for what you launched, but for how fast consumers rejected it.
