Consumer research data show Democrats have become more likely to wear Levi’s than their Republican counterparts. The opposite is true with Wrangler, which is now far more popular with Republicans.
There is no simple explanation behind those consumer moves. Some of it is due to social and political stances companies are taking, such as Levi’s embrace of gun control. Some is tied to larger geographic shifts in the political parties themselves, as rural counties become more Republican and urban areas lean more Democratic. Wrangler is popular in the cowboy counties of the West and Midwest while San Francisco-based Levi’s resonates more with city dwellers.
Together those factors are combining to create a new, more partisan American consumer culture, one where the red/blue divisions that have come to define national politics have drifted into the world of shopping malls and online stores.
There is a simple explanation. It is corporate political positioning. Levi’s is positioning itself as lefty, and Wrangler is not. It is not new. Patagonia has been doing this since 1973. I imagine John B. Stetson (as in Stetson hats) did this a hundred years earlier. In the last few decades it became increasingly popular for companies to jump on board the diversity and environmentalist and GLBTQ+ bandwagons.
It’s behind a paywall so here’s an excerpt:
There is a simple explanation. It is corporate political positioning. Levi’s is positioning itself as lefty, and Wrangler is not. It is not new. Patagonia has been doing this since 1973. I imagine John B. Stetson (as in Stetson hats) did this a hundred years earlier. In the last few decades it became increasingly popular for companies to jump on board the diversity and environmentalist and GLBTQ+ bandwagons.
Woke Capitalism is ascendant.