Novig
Sydney Sweeney's Novig ad has sparked a new round of cultural discourse
Sydney Sweeney is no stranger to making headlines, and her latest campaign for the sports prediction market Novig is no different. This latest campaign, however, has sparked a mind-numbing number of think pieces on the internet.
Despite the fact that the topic at hand is a blonde actress taking her clothes off to sell a sports betting app, Sydney Sweeney’s campaign for Novig has turned into a referendum on women’s sports and femininity, in general.
Not only did Sweeney feature in a risque ad for the company, but she’s also an equity holder in Novig.
“The campaign was about embracing a fun idea. The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor, and a playful edge,” Sweeney said of the ad.
“There are a lot of people that have feelings about Sydney as a person that predate this campaign. Working with her, we obviously expected the people who already hate her would be loud and vocal. Ultimately, I think she did a great job at conveying the essence of our company and we’ve been very happy with how positive the feedback has been overall.”
Sydney Sweeney’s Novig ad has sparked a new round of cultural discourse as dozens of opinion pieces pop up online
Seemingly everyone on the internet has a take on Sweeney’s latest topless endeavor, as a Google search of “Sydney Sweeney opinion” produces dozens of results.
“We asked ourselves who would be the best person to grab the attention of the public to make Novig a household name. Sydney approached us, but from there it was a very obvious decision,” Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky told Front Office Sports.
While the campaign has successfully generated press for a couple of weeks, it’s also seemingly angered many women, as Sweeney reportedly lost over 200,000 Instagram followers in the wake of the commercial’s release.
Sex sells is a tale as old as time: what Sweeney is doing isn’t anything new. The reason that she’s become such a lightning rod, however, is because of how often, and how open, she is about doing it. Back in the day, “sex sells” was an unspoken rule and almost always had a tongue-in-cheek element to it.
Danica Patrick’s infamous GoDaddy shower commercial, for example, was presented under the pretense of Patrick being remotely controlled by horned-up 20-something-year-old dudes.
Sweeney, on the other hand, has pulled back the curtain. Her Dr. Squatch ad from last year had no meta element, no clever gag — it was Sweeney, naked, in a bathtub, selling a bar of soap allegedly made from her bathwater. This latest Novig campaign is more of the same: she’s naked not because some pervy teens have been handed magical internet powers, but because she and the audience both know it makes them watch. Nothing more, nothing less: everyone has agreed they like seeing her with her clothes off. She’s gladly obliging.
The more interesting question to ask of Sweeney is why she’s eschewed potential movie stardom to take this route instead: where some actors see themselves as artists, Sweeney clearly sees herself as a brand, with acting just being a single cog in that money-making machine.