A sentence you don’t hear very often is: A jeans ad stirred up a massive political firestorm. Over the summer, American Eagle Outfitters released an ad featuring movie star Sydney Sweeney modelling various denim products and punning on jeans & genes. Given her preexisting centrality to a variety of culture war topics, often involving the relation between ethnicity and beauty standards, this was received alternately as an unsubtle coded message, an attempt to deniably surf political controversy for financial gain, or just a simple pun.
One thing that could shed light on the controversy is a measure of how American Eagle’s executives lean politically. Happily, this is something we measure in addition to donations by a company’s PAC. As demonstrated by the data, and under any interpretation, that ad didn’t come out of nowhere.
Stock up 56% since ad
Political contributions 92% right-leaning
100% of total is from Executives
Minimal amount contributed relative to other companies
In response to the commercial and its attendant news cycle, GAP and Levi Strauss both put out response ads highlighting what many read as the opposite message, that of diversity and acceptance. For one, this illustrates how quickly issues of politics can become economic battle lines, competitive advantages, or competitive disadvantages. As their political contributions show, it also reveals the strong predictive capacity of executive political giving.
Stock up 4% since ad
Political contributions 70% left-leaning
42% of total is from Executives
High amount contributed relative to other companies
Stock up 23% since ad
Political contributions 96% left-leaning
100% of total is from Executives
Minimal amount contributed relative to other companies
American Eagle stock had the most to gain, going from about $10/share to almost $17. GAP & Levis started ahead at around $20/share each. Clearly, compared to early summer, the market now considers AEO much closer to the weight class of the others.
Oh, and some denim dispensaries that don’t put their fingers on the scale of government? Lee, Wrangler, and Carhartt, all of which have perfect scores.
Of course, executive political contributions can’t tell how the leadership of a brand actually votes but they do provide reliable indicators of partisan lean, as well as a raft of other metrics relevant to the governance and even profitability of a firm. And, on occasion, what greenlighting certain ad campaigns may or may not represent.