“Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”
A case study in understanding emotions and opinions in open ended survey data
By Fathom Insights Team
A Fun, Timely Example of the Power of Open Ended Analysis
Over the weekend of Aug 17th 2025, in partnership with TrueDot, we fielded a quick survey to explore perceptions of American Eagle’s “Good Jeans” campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney.
This wasn’t a full-blown study, just six open-ended questions and a few quant measures, fielded Sunday and back on our desks by Monday. Using Fathom, we coded and analyzed over 6,000 responses in a matter of hours.
Why? Because this ad is everywhere.
Fifty-seven percent of Americans say they’ve seen some part of the campaign, and it’s sparked a lot of conversation. We wanted to use it as a live example of how open-ended analysis uncovers nuance and segmentation that simple quant questions cannot for a webinar two days later!
Associations with “my jeans are blue” or “she has good jeans”
When asked what comes to mind when you hear “my jeans are blue” or “she has good jeans,” more than half of respondents referenced some aspect of the American Eagle advertisement, demonstrating the penetration and recall this ad achieved.
Specifically:
40% talked about jeans, quality, and fashion
20% mentioned celebrities or brands mostly American Eagle and Sweeney, but with 5% naming Levi’s
Nearly 30% of respondents jumped right in to some of the more controversial aspects of the ad:
14% picked up Jeans/Genes wordplay, with 10% interpreting genetics or eugenics and 8% talking about playful wordplay
9% expressed confusion about the advertisement and its goals
7% defended the ad in their initial response
And then there was “It’s nothing” cited by 10% of respondents.
What do you think of when you hear “my jeans are blue” or “she has good jeans”? (n = 1083)
In many datasets, a “nothing” or “NA” code means just that, a blank, no answer, no association. But here, “It’s nothing” emerged as its own theme with explicit responses like “this means nothing,” “it’s nothing,” or “not a big deal.”
That nuance matters. These are not people with no associations. They are people actively dismissing the campaign. It is ambiguity, deflection, and even defensiveness, which signals how some audiences relate to the ad.
This is a great example of how detail in inductive coding surfaces subtle but important distinctions that would be lost in a flat “no answer” bucket.
“Nothing. It’s a normal statement” ~ Somewhat like it, Female, 18-34.
“Not much, nothing outlandish” ~ Like it, Male, 18-34.
“Not offensive at all. I do not think of anything.” ~Like it, Male, 65+.
The Nuance of “Nothing”
“These aren’t people with no associations. They’re actively dismissing the importance or potential harm of the campaign.”
How the Ad Makes People Feel: Sentiment vs Emotional Activation
When we asked how the ad makes respondents feel, the story shifts depending on how we organized the emotional data (Has seen ad).
What emotion best describes how you feel about the recent “my jeans are blue” campaign”?
When emotions are grouped according to traditional sentiment,
52% feel negative or neutral emotions in response to the ad
44% feel positive emotions in response to the ad
On the surface, that looks like a challenge for American Eagle.
But reorganize the exact same data using an emotional activation framework, which maps emotions that prompt people to take action versus those that inhibit action, and the picture changes.
What emotion best describes how you feel about the recent “my jeans are blue” campaign”?
When emotions are grouped according to emotional activation,
55% feel activating emotions (~2/3rds positive / 1/3 negative)
42% feel inhibiting emotions
This is the driver of virality. Both the defenders, feeling joy, delight, or appreciation, and the detractors, feeling anger or offence, were activated enough to talk about it. That back-and-forth fuels reach even if opinions differ.
"55% activating with both positive and negative sentiment — the fuel of virality."
Why People Feel That Way: Open ended themes based on 1000+ responses
To dig deeper and understand the perceptions, beliefs and experiences driving those emotional reactions, we asked: “Why does the ad make you feel that way? Tell us something about you and your perceptions.”
Here’s what we heard at the all sample level (n=1083):
Attractiveness and appeal (37%) respondents are drawn to Sydney Sweeney’s look and the playful tone.
Not that controversial (34%) respondents take a defensive, dismissive stance, “it’s just an ad”. This is as much a reaction to the outrage as it is to the ad.
Brand or product appeal (18%) reflect loyalty to American Eagle, the brand symbolism and its jeans.
Offensive or harmful (13%), express concerns about sexualization and racial controversy.
Emotional Personal Reactions (7%), represent feelings of shared identity with the ad, model or content.
Segmenting responses into three groups — Likers, Neutrals, and Dislikers of the ad — highlights the themes that are driving perceptions and reactions:
Likers (the largest group) are primarily motivated by attractiveness, brand loyalty, and identity.
Neutrals (the middle group) frequently minimized controversy emphasizing “it’s just an ad,” but often alongside acknowledgment that it could be offensive.
Dislikers (the smallest group) focus on offence and harm, particularly objectification of women and racial insensitivity.
Why does the ad make you feel that way? Tell us something about you and your perceptions. (Has seen ad)
This layering shows the richness of open ended analysis, not just what people say, but how their stories and values explain those reactions.
But there’s more we can do with this rich open ended data to create a map for replicability, if that’s what the brand wants to do, and to show opportunities for other brands to respond effectively.
The Values Lens: Using advanced thematic coding to apply Moral Foundations Theory to open ended survey data
To understand the “why” even more deeply, we mapped responses against Moral Foundations Theory, a framework developed by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt that identifies core values people use to interpret the world, such as:
Care and Harm: Is anyone being hurt or protected?
Liberty and Oppression: Do I or others have freedom or feel constrained?
Loyalty and Ingroup: Do I belong? Is my group represented or excluded?
"The brand and what it stands for, is the American way of feeling proud with blue jeans." ~Loyalty/Ingroup, Male, 35-49
“Tired of cancel culture, tired of the left just WAITING to be offended at the SLIGHTEST thing.” ~Liberty/Oppression, Female, 65+
“That ad was very sexist and weird. Because it hurts the people and you’re just hurting yourself tbh.” ~Care/Harm, Female, 18-34
When applied to this dataset, MFT revealed clear divides:
Dislikers were concerned with care and harm, especially the objectification of women and degradation.
Likers emphasized liberty and freedom, saying “say what you want,” and ingroup belonging.
Neutrals also referenced liberty and freedom, but without the ingroup loyalty frame.
Why does the ad make you feel that way? Tell us something about you and your perceptions. (Has seen ad)
Dislikers are concerned about harm & degradation of women.
Likers appreciate the freedom to express a non-pc viewpoint, & feel an affinity with the ad.
Neutral also support freedom of expression, but don’t feel like they belong.
This is a powerful example of how coding frameworks help surface not just reactions, but the values that drive them.
It gives insight into how American Eagle could tap into these values again to replicate this success, and also how other brands could respond effectively (as we saw GAP do this week!).
The Twist: American Eagle’s Target Audience
Here’s the kicker. Among young women, AE’s core target audience, nearly two-thirds disliked the ad.
Their language revealed deep concern with sexualization, objectification, and harm. The minority of young women who liked the ad pointed to attractiveness, loyalty to American Eagle, and strong ingroup identity.
Why does the ad make you feel that way? Tell us something about you and your perceptions. (Has seen ad, Female, 18-34)
“Among young women, nearly two-thirds disliked the ad.”
What This Tells Us
The Good Jeans campaign shows how an ad can achieve cultural virality through activating both positive and negative sentiment, which can get people people talking, sharing, and even building brand penetration and recall, while still falling flat with a key core audience.
For American Eagle, the data suggests that while the ad drove buzz, it risked alienating young women by reinforcing themes of objectification, rather than empowerment.
The nuanced thematic coding provides a map for how American Eagle could replicate the aspects of this campaign that created so much stir. And paints a picture for how a competitive brand could respond to clap back in a way that resonates with young women - the key demographic. Exactly as we saw GAP do!
How We Did It and Why It Matters
This entire analysis, over 1,000 open-ended responses, was coded and analyzed in hours using Fathom.
Inductive discovery surfaced fresh, nuanced associations that gave the detail needed to understand, like genetics, eugenics, and “it’s nothing.”
Deductive frameworks mapped sentiment, activation, and moral values, providing clarity into the beliefs and experiences driving perceptions.
Segmentation revealed how different groups experienced the same ad.
With Fathom, teams can align open-ended analysis timelines with closed-ended survey data, capturing nuance and audience dynamics to quickly respond to evolving cultural moments or fast changing dynamics.
👉 That is the future of insights: fast, rigorous, and richly human.
