There isn’t much doubt about what stage of convergence Levi’s has reached now that it has brought the old SNL skit about Woke Jeans to life.
Jennifer Sey was an executive at Levi’s when the brand debuted its gender-neutral campaign. But Sey told Fox News Digital the greatest profit for the company came from traditional gender-focused products. Sometimes men buy women’s clothes. Sometimes women buy men’s clothes.
“It wasn’t a reinvention of the product line,” Sey said. “I still think it’s woke washing. If we want to call it that. And yes, I did it and I would probably do things a little differently now.”
So it seems the gender-fluid line is simply a marketing tactic — pandering to a small portion of the population.
“Levi’s has always been a brand for everyone. Just leave it at that,” Sey said. “Why wade into controversial politics around gender ideology? Now? When the Bud Light backlash caused a more than 20 percent decline in sales in April for their flagship brand?”
Companies are blinded by ideology. And they are pressured by a small minority of employees, consumers and activists. These parties have, in Sey’s opinion, lost sight of the fact that the purpose of business is to deliver profits.
“This approach Levi’s is taking alienates a significant portion of the population who takes this to be the company furthering a controversial ideology that says biological sex isn’t real,” she added. “Not a good move, with the stock price already down more than 20 percent this year and 50 percent from two years ago. Just stick with Levi’s is for everyone.”
But corporations seem to be more interested in furthering their reputations as “do-gooders and altruists,” she said. As evidenced by Dylan Mulvaney’s more than $1 million in sponsorship deals.
Interesting to see how SJWAL, published in 2015, and Corporate Cancer, published in 2019, laid out precisely how this sort of thing would happen, and how a small group of individuals in key positions would make it happen.