In the battle for the attention economy, data-driven visual design is considered a key determinant of success. The American Eagle 'Great Jeans' campaign presents a fascinating anomaly to this rule. While it achieved phenomenal cultural impact, a rigorous neuroscientific analysis of the creative itself reveals significant visual flaws. This document serves as the scientific foundation for our published analysis of the American Eagle 'Great Jeans' campaign, providing the detailed predictive data—including heatmaps, gaze plots, and performance metrics—that underpins our strategic conclusions. The data is presented here with a direct, objective analysis of the ad's visual effectiveness, stripped of the broader cultural commentary.

Methodology

We conducted a visual attention analysis using predictive eye-tracking (instant attention). Each creative was evaluated on:

• Heatmaps: Predicted initial attention (first 3-5 seconds)
• Gazeplots: Visual hierarchy (fixation sequence)
• Peekthroughs: Areas that go unnoticed
• AOIs (Areas of Interest): % of attention to defined regions
• Scores: Attention Score (0-100), Clarity Score (focus & proximity), benchmarked to channel
• Brand Element Tracking (Video): Analysis of the timing and visibility of brand assets and key text

Campaign materials were tested in their intended media context (DOOH, Social Media).

Results

A. Benchmarked Attention

All creatives were benchmarked in-context, in this case within a DOOH / Outdoor Media Context and the Social Media eco-system. The benchmarked attention analysis measures how well a creative stands out against its specific media context (e.g., a busy street, a fast-scrolling social feed) and competing advertising. In a typical distribution, ads scoring above 65 are considered salient and likely to be noticed. The AE/Sweeney ads consistently score around or under the median, indicating they do not possess strong visual standout power.

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‍The data leads to a clear conclusion: AE's creatives lack visual salience within their intended channels.

B. Instant Attention & Intuitive viewing behaviour

When viewers do see the ads, what design-elements caught their (intuitive, instant) attention, where was their gaze drawn to, and in what order? Across all creatives, we saw that instant attention was heavily captured by Sydney Sweeney’s (face), absorbing most of the viewers instant attention. This is briefly followed by scanning the American Eagle brand (text), but fragmented and minimal, as shown in the Gazeplot and Peekthrough.

• Predictive Eye-Tracking Heatmaps (all) showed intense forces around the face.
• Gazeplots revealed fixation patterns that rarely moved beyond the brand ambassador
• Peekthroughs did expose the brand name, but scattered and minimal.

‍An Area of Interest (AOI) analysis quantifies this distribution of attention with precision:

• Box 1 (Face): Draws a dominant 40% of visual attention.
• Box 2 (Brand): Receives a combined 15%.
• Box 3 (Message / Pun): Is allocated a mere 6%.

With only 6% of attention on the message, the data confirms that the pivotal 'jeans/genes' pun is almost entirely overlooked at first glance.

Recent attention-tracking research indicates our window for ad impact is averaging 2.2 seconds (Ramsøy, 2025). Generally, eye-tracking studies show that reading a short slogan takes at least one second of focused attention, while puns add an additional 100s of ms of semantic processing time. In this campaign, most attention is absorbed by the celebrity, leaving insufficient cognitive bandwidth for viewers to fully process the wordplay in ‘Has Great Jeans’.

For those who'd like to assess the heatmap(s) we refer to the dynamic insights pages (visual 1, visual 2, visual 3).

C. Visual Clarity

All creatives show a high visual clarity which means that they are not cluttered but service a clear, focused view for the target audience/viewer (opposed to cluttered images). From the literature we know that visuals with a high clarity with the right design-elements have positivecorrelations with brand anchoring and memory (emotion - brand - product). All of the AE/Sweeney creatives have a high clarity, but only due to the concentration on the brand ambassador. This comes at the cost of brand visibility.

D. Video Variant: Delayed Branding, Delayed Attention

As part of the Great Jeans campaign, social video content was advertised. For this analysis, we also analyzed a 15-second video version used for social media.

• Attention Score: 41/100
• Clarity Score: 59/100
• Brand Visibility: 2 seconds out of 15
• Brand Attention: 5% total
• Time until first brand appearance: 13 seconds

Despite hearing Sydney Sweeney’s voice at the beginning, her face and the brand do not appear until the final seconds. This delays cognitive processing of the commercial’s core elements, resulting in minimal branding impact. The attention graph shows a drop-off before the brand even becomes visible. In short: Sydney Sweeney is not seen until the final frames, the brand appears even later, meaning most viewers have tuned out before this moment (see dynamic video heatmap here).

Conclusion: A Visually Unremarkable Foundation for a Strategic Triumph

In all facets, this campaign underdelivers on its primary visual communication goals. While celebrity-driven visuals command attention and stopping power, this does not translate to message retention or brand linkage under normal circumstances. In any other context, this imbalance would be defined as wasted media spend. It serves as a powerful reminder that while a visually weak creative can be saved by a brilliant cultural strategy, it remains a high-risk gamble. The visuals may have been flawed, but the strategy was anything but.