Last August, Sydney Sweeney broke the internet with American Eagle spots showing her in a too-tight top and struggling with the zipper of her jeans.
In her new campaign for Novig, Sweeney has solved those wardrobe problems: She’s not wearing anything at all.
“Today, we at Novig unveiled out first national brand campaign featuring Sweeney,” the sports prediction app announced on its website, “bringing to life our belief that the best sports trading experience comes from a platform singularly focused on sports.”
The campaign’s title is “Just Sports.” But judging from the heated response from the public, “Just Sex” might have been a better title.
Though some men have expressed appreciation for the work (one calling it “better than any sports playing right now,”) women have largely responded with disappointment and anger.
The problem isn’t showing skin, per se (advertising is already full of that). But at a time when female athletes have just begun inching toward parity in pay and fame, people feel Sweeney has turned back the clock to the Playboy era.
“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” Australian gold-medalist swimmer Ariane Titmus wrote on Instagram, referring to Sweeney’s ads as “a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft.”
Women outside the sports realm have expressed their dismay, too.
“Every great female athlete has used her platform to create movement, challenge norms, inspire change and make an impact,” AI executive Indigo Haddington responded on Sweeney’s Instagram page. “All she’s done is get paid for what she’s known for: her body.”
It’s unlikely that Novig or Sweeney were under any illusions that this campaign was about “just sports” in a literal sense. What’s beyond dispute is that the campaign takes a page from a playbook written long ago—a legacy that Sweeney herself seems to have nodded to in her response to the backlash: a post with a series of photos showing athletes, including MMA star Ronda Rousey and football beefcake Rob Gronkowski, showing plenty of skin.
Even so, even in advertising, a revealing image is one thing; a lasciviousness message is another. In 1971, National Airlines ran ads starring their leggy flight attendants who invited businessmen to “fly me.” In the early 2000s, Axe’s notorious “Billions” ad depicted a tribe of libidinous women chasing down a man who’d just used Axe body spray.
