It’s been several weeks since Sydney Sweeney wore nothing but sports balls for a new ad shining a spotlight on the sports betting company Novig. I don’t think there’s any question the ad worked to get the name Novig into peoples’ minds. I had no idea what the betting platform was before the viral advertisement, but I certainly do now. Even days later, there are more and more people talking about Sweeney… but also about her ad.
In fact, the new venture has been great business for Ms. Sweeney, who has marked a name for herself not only as an actress but also as an entrepreneur. She’s reportedly learned a few tricks from beau Scooter Braun along the way, and she was the one who brought the partnership idea to Novig, and not the other way around.
What happened next? The 58 second ad is extremely memorable. In it, Sweeney tries on a variety of sports equipment – and only sports equipment – while talking about the app, which is “just sports.” You can’t bet on Sweeney’s underwear color. You can’t bet on weird things happening in pop culture, like who will be the next James Bond. It’s “just sports” you see.
The ad has racked up millions and millions of views across platforms, and while some athletes have publicly decried the ad as undoing years of work in women's sports, Ms. Sweeney hasn’t seemed bothered. She’d clapped back with more instances of athletes getting naked in the name of sports when the criticism first started coming down the pipeline. Now, there’s other evidence the ad was a good idea for Ms. Sweeney, at least from a money-making standpoint. That’s because it’s been incredibly effective.
When the actress went to Novig about a potential partnership, she became an equity stakeholder in the company. At the time, it was valued at about $500 million on Wall Street. This week, just a few paltry weeks after the ad dropped, it more than tripled its valuation. Per the Wall Street Journal, the company raised new funding to the tune of a $2 billion valuation.
That’s a huge difference, and it’s mostly come on the back of Sweeney’s viral ad. Prior to that, sure Novig had a working deal with the New York Mets and had garnered a loyal podcast following. Most people, myself included though, had never heard of it.
As for the ads, Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky has said the company never intended to create the ads for ladies in sports or to offend any ladies in sports, noting:
As a company, we’re hugely supportive of women’s sports. I think it’s a huge component of our platform.We never intended to portray female sports. Sydney’s an actress. We’re a prediction market that is focused on sports, and that was the story she was communicating. It was a very exciting process to work with her both on the commercial side and the creative side.
The CEO went on to say he and the company knew Sweeney had detractors that pre-dated her work with the sports betting company. The Internet has hated on previous campaigns like her AE Jeans campaign or that time she did an ad for Ford. (To note, the jeans campaign that also received backlash also ended up being good for American Eagle.)
I think there are a lot of people who have feelings about Sydney as a person that sort of pre-date this campaign. Working with her, we expected the people who already hate her would, you know, be sort of loud and vocal.
Still, it was worth the risk for the company to say yes, though Fortinsky also said he felt she “did a great job" at the end of the day. Now, if Wall Street is any indication, it was a partnership that made sense for both sides.
