The Sydney Sweeney effect fades fast for brands, sales data suggests

Sydney Sweeney can make a brand famous in a week, but the sales lift may not last much longer. Sales and card data reviewed by Adweek around two of the actor’s past partnerships, American Eagle and Dr. Squatch, suggests her effect fades once the shock value wears off. It lands as a third brand, the US prediction market Novig, doubles down on her.

What the data shows

American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign launched in July 2025 and drew accusations of promoting eugenics. The retailer still called it a success: chief marketing officer Craig Brommers said it brought in 790,000 new US customers in six weeks, and comparable sales rose 1% in the third quarter of 2025 after falling 3% the quarter before. Card data from Consumer Edge showed the brand had gone from losing to gaining market share by November 2025, although it was also running a Travis Kelce campaign at the time.

By the time Sweeney returned for Syd for Short in April 2026, the boost was already wearing off. Comparable sales at the American Eagle brand fell 2% in the first quarter of 2026 and were still down 1% in the second. Michael Gunther of Consumer Edge said the brand’s market share since then shows little sign of a sustained improvement like the one the original campaign delivered over the holidays.

Dr. Squatch’s 2025 stunt, soap bars made with Sweeney’s bath water, drew almost a million competition entries, and the brand said it drove a 20% week-on-week jump in revenue. Yet Consumer Edge’s data showed its share of the beauty products market shrank by as much as 25 basis points in the two months afterwards. That data only covers direct sales, not purchases at retailers such as Walmart, Target or Amazon, and Dr. Squatch chief executive Josh Friedman called the partnership “memorable and successful”.

Famous face, forgotten brand

Novig is getting the attention. Its two Sweeney videos have clocked around 100 million views on Instagram and it says first-time depositors rose more than 218% in the 20 days after the first ad. But Meltwater counted 1.9 million social mentions of Sweeney between September and mid-October, and only 65,500 posts that named her alongside Novig.

Sam Kane, Gymshark’s former communications chief and now founder of PR agency SKC, called Sweeney’s knack for grabbing attention unparalleled. On how much Novig’s follow-up had actually cut through, his verdict was blunt: “Comparatively very little.”

Why it matters

This is a US story with a UK owner in it: Unilever bought Dr. Squatch for around $1.5bn in September 2025. For any British brand paying for a famous face, the warning is about the second campaign, not the first. Launch buzz is easy to celebrate, but the sequel is where the effect either compounds or quietly runs out, so the deal should be judged on sales and market share a year on.

The celebrity work that lasts in Britain tends to make the star serve the brand, as Walkers and Gary Lineker did for decades. Otherwise the conversation ends up about the celebrity, which is exactly what Meltwater’s numbers show. It is also why some brands are walking away: Just Eat has just dropped celebrities from its new platform, and the case for a made-up mascot that the brand owns outright has rarely looked stronger.