“A cultural takeover”: It looks like the Gap and Katseye won this year’s denim ad war, after all

It's been a great year for the denim industrial complex. But when it comes to the ad wars, the Gap is a clear winner.

The 2025 denim wars

The war began with Beyoncé, who, nearly a year ago, collaborated with Levi's to recreate a classic commercial. This ended up being a roaring success in the months that followed, with the brand amassing $1.4 billion in sales in Q2 2025 and a 6% rise in net revenue.

However, Katseye's "Better in Denim" campaign for the Gap has blown these figures right out of the water. The viral commercial featured the girl group dancing to Milkshake, reviving the track and making it one of the songs of the summer.

The campaign became a huge hit on TikTok, with claims of it being a late entry for "song of the summer" and many dance tutorials following.

Gap's campaign seen as a business win

During the Gap's latest earnings call, which was quoted by Business Insider, the viral campaign was a hot topic. "Twenty million views in the first three days, 400 million total views, and 8 billion total impressions. Better in Denim is the No. 1 search on TikTok," Richard Dixon, CEO of Gap Inc, said in the call. "These aren't small facts or small stats. This is proving that Gap is a powerful pop culture brand."

According to Dixon, the ad got more views in its first three days than the four of its previous campaigns combined. To Dixon, this is "reinforcing the cultural relevance of the brand."

"This is striking range of probably being one of the most iconic brand campaigns, certainly that we've done, but that is out there," Dickson added. "People aren't just watching, but they're actively joining and suggesting that this is actually a cultural takeover."

What about other denim ads?

The other brands out there haven't been nearly as lucky (pun intended).

For instance, Lucky Brand recently enlisted Addison Rae to be the face of their ad campaign for jeans that she herself had designed. However, this moment was overshadowed after American Eagle faced backlash for its ad with Sydney Sweeney, which went viral for all the wrong reasons.

The commercial featured the Euphoria star talking about how she has good "genes," which many argued that, given her appearance as a blue-eyed blonde, equated to white supremacy and Nazi-like eugenics.

That being said, American Eagle's stock did jump during the thick of the controversy, so maybe all publicity is good publicity after all?

Still, the Gap remains a clear winner, as the fan response online clearly shows:

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