Sydney Sweeney is at it again. After causing a collective coronary for some very silly people last year by appearing in a sexy ad for American Eagle jeans, she’s appeared in another ad. This time, it’s for Novig – a sports ‘prediction’ betting app. And this time, Sweeney is naked.

As I write this, almost two million people have watched the ad and only a minuscule minority will be traducing the use of Sweeney’s body to sell a very unsexy tech product

Well, not quite naked. She’s partly concealed by various sports accoutrements as she gazes into the camera and repeats the word ‘sports’ over and over again. In so doing, she’s driven some men wild and some women even wilder – but for very different reasons.

Some of the angry women are top athletes, furious at what they see as Sydney Sweeney sexualising and trivialising what they do for a living British sprint champion Amy Hunt was first out of the blocks. After running 200 metres in 22.1 seconds at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, she used her post-race interview to take aim: ‘Sydney Sweeney’, she declared, ‘This is what women’s sport looks like. Hard work, sweat, blood, tears’.

Yes, Amy, we know. No one has ever said otherwise.

American gymnast Gracie Kramer went even further. She took time out from her brutal training regime to post a montage of her brutal training regime, along with the caption: ‘I don’t know what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.’

Again, we know.

We also know exactly what Sydney Sweeney was doing. She was selling a sports betting app. At no point did she pretend that she was an elite athlete. Neither did she decry the great talent, strength and sacrifice involved in becoming one.

Athletes weren’t even mentioned. The ad is about sports betting but if we’re talking about fair representation, the people who might have cause for complaint are online gamblers. Where was the shot of an overweight middle-aged man slumped in a Lay-Z-Boy armchair with a few cans of lager, betting on the football?

But as everyone in adland knows, you don’t have to show the target market on screen to appeal to them. On the contrary, which is one of the reasons Novig’s decision to cast Sydney Sweeney was a savvy one. Her sultry and provocative performance, building on last year’s denim-based outrage, was bound to appeal to the people most likely to download this app.

I don’t gamble – never have – not since my dad said ‘Most bookies have five windows to pay in and only one to pay out. That’s all you need to know’. And yet even I found myself googling Novig to find out more about it.

I won’t have been the only one. As I write this, almost two million people have watched the ad and only a minuscule minority will be traducing the use of Sweeney’s body to sell a very unsexy tech product.

This is hardly an unusual strategy. Advertisers have always used beautiful people to sell their products because it makes that sale a lot easier. Good looking people – male or female – are described as ‘easy on the eye’ for a reason. To rage against beautiful people in adverts is as pointless as raging against athletic people in the 400 metre hurdles.

As far as Sydney Sweeney is concerned, of course, it’s mission accomplished. The voluble minority who told the world how much they hated this ad played right into her hands. Again.

You’d think that after the phenomenal success of her American Eagle jeans ad last year, despite – well, because of – the vehement objections against it, they’d have learned their lesson. But no, not a bit of it.

Once again, Sydney Sweeney, the power of smart, cynical advertising and a certain brand of female empowerment have emerged victorious. Her global fame has been spectacularly enhanced. And given that she has equity in Novig, her global fortune looks set to be to be similarly boosted.

Yet still Sweeney’s detractors rage and in doing so they make sure more and more people see the advert. Ariarne Titmus, a former Olympic swimmer had this to say, ‘Sydney Sweeney – do better!’ Do better? Given what Sydney Sweeney set out to do, it’s hard to see how that was possible.