Analysis: Novig Search Interest Jumps 1,000% in a Week After Nude Sydney Sweeney Ad

^{Sydney Sweeney in a Novig ad}

Search interest in sports prediction platform Novig surged after the release of its controversial ad featuring a nude Sydney Sweeney. Worldwide interest in the brand rose 1,000% over the past week compared with the previous week, according to Google Trends data analyzed by Gambling Park.

Novig launched the Sweeney campaign on September 9. The ad showed the actress nude, covering herself with sports equipment. Before the campaign, Novig was barely registering on Google: on September 8, its worldwide search interest index* stood at just 1 out of 100.

That changed quickly after the ad went live.

The index climbed to 17 on September 9, reached 52 on September 13 and hit a peak of 100 on September 14. A day later, it was still close to that high at 93.

The effect was international. In every country analyzed by Gambling Park, search interest in Novig increased severalfold over the week:

The campaign drew even more attention after professional female athletes criticized it. They accused the ad of overly sexualizing women and argued that it had little to do with actual women’s sports.

Even amid the controversy, however, Novig remained far less searched than Sydney Sweeney herself. Over the past week, Sweeney’s average worldwide search interest stood at 36, compared with just 5 for Novig.

In other words, people searched for Sweeney about seven times as often as the brand she was promoting.

Still, the impact on Novig was substantial. In just a few days, search interest in the brand went from virtually zero to peak levels in several countries.

* Google Trends does not show the absolute number of searches. Instead, it measures relative search popularity on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 represents peak interest during the selected period.