Levi's "Artificial Diversity" Misstep

When the brand touted digital avatars as a means of increasing diversity, they were called out. Then they apologized. But the whole affair revealed the lie at the heart of woke capitalism.

About two weeks ago, Levi’s announced they were partnering with Lalaland.ai to create custom avatars for their levi.com website in order to increase the diversity of its models. After significant backlash, they’ve since apologized stating that they did not see the pilot as a means to advance diversity.

Ok. Then why did they say it? Here was the original statement:

I’m late to the party on this one but figured I’d weigh in regardless as I have an insider’s view as to what distorted thinking caused this faux pas.

While I haven’t worked at the company for a little over a year, this idea — using AI generated avatars to showcase a particular product on a range of body types, at reduced cost vs photographing the jean on a variety of models — was something we had discussed and considered while I was still at the company.

At the time, I rejected the idea as inauthentic. The quality of the digital avatars I was shown did not reflect the authenticity the brand always purports to convey and stand for. While I didn’t rule it out completely as something we might consider in the future, in its iteration at the time, I was unconvinced it would achieve the brand’s goal of showcasing the product on a variety of people/body types so that shoppers might be more able to see themselves wearing the jean.

I, for one, was very open to the idea in general. Seeing the newest high rise skinny jean on a singular model-like body type — very tall and very thin — would not allow me to see how this particular jean might look on me. My average height and weight body type wouldn’t look like this woman in this jean:

Wouldn’t it be great to see this jean on a woman who is not very tall and very thin, something much more average and approximating my body? Wouldn’t that give me a better idea of how I might look in it? Yes. That said, seeing it on a cartoonish representation of my average self wouldn’t do much to further this goal. So I said no, not now, much to the marketing team’s chagrin — always anxious to get credit for “innovating.”

From a business perspective, the benefit of this AI endeavor would be allowing shoppers to see a range of body types in the jean, enhancing relevance (this is for you!), in a cost efficient manner. Photographing a single product on multiple models — how many is enough to allow the full range of possible wearers to see themselves in the jean? 10? 20? More? — is pretty pricey. So when we were pitched by AI companies on how we could do that without skyrocketing costs, we were intrigued. I was intrigued. Enhancing relevance for a broad range of consumers without 10x-ing the cost sounded pretty good. But not when the “models” looked goofy, digitized and fake. I can no more see myself in a pixelated digital reproduction of a person than I can in a six foot tall super model. We moved on, at my insistence.

But apparently the team continued to pursue the strategy with the hopes that the AI generated avatars would improve significantly.

On March 23, upon announcing that they would in fact be doing this, Levi’s had clearly decided that the AI had improved sufficiently to achieve the goal. Fine. But then, they decided to PR the program as a diversity play. (My team had wanted to PR it as an innovation play.)

But why PR it at all? Why not just do it (no Nike pun intended)? I doubt anyone would have noticed or commented if they’d just launched without the desperate PR maneuver.

The fact is — Levi’s can’t resist PR-ing themselves even when it is entirely unnecessary or unwarranted and not part of the primary goal of a particular program. (Granted, Levi’s is not unique in this.)

PR and communications managers are rated on the number of “impressions” they generate: how many people see the story. Each PR story is then equated to a “media valuation” based on what a similar “placement” with equivalent impressions would have cost if paid for. Then they add all the valuations of these placements up for the year — and voila! — it is said that the PR person drove X value for the company. It’s like putting money right in the coffers, or so it is assumed.

The desire to get credit for impressions and free media can cloud one’s vision. And generating PR for increasing diversity is an even bigger feather in the PR team’s cap. Virtuous messages are even better than regular old jeans messages — or even innovation messages — in a world of woke capitalism.

The PR team wanted the credit for impressions, dollar value and diversity so much they didn’t think through the actual validity of the messaging. Who needs truth when there are impressions about increasing diversity on the line! And in fairness, the press usually eats it up uncritically so it was a fair bet that they would this time. Only they didn’t. Because of course, using digitally generated “models” does nothing to increase actual diversity. And so the backlash began, with headlines like this:

The piece in The Cut went on to say:

“So who’s going to tell this multibillion-dollar company that it can develop a diversity and inclusion strategy by just . . . hiring and paying actual models of different races and body types? The irony is not lost on us.”

Ok but they were never going to pay a lot of different models of a lot of different races and body types because of the cost (not an unreasonable business choice based on the reality of budgets). And then Levi’s seemingly forgot that the point of increasing diversity is to include a wider range of actual people. Not just seem like you are. So they moved ahead with the misguided press release.

There is an entire team of PR professionals who need to justify their salaries. And so you get pronouncements that Levi’s is increasing diversity with AI generated fake models. And then you get fake apologies that say we never saw this as a way to increase real diversity. Then why did you say it?

In putting forth the original statement, Levi’s revealed their true intentions: signal virtue without doing anything real at all, with the hopes of using this marketing opportunity to drive sales and make money while burnishing their reputation as “values-driven.” The perfunctory apology was only issued because they got caught being woke.

The business press would do well to challenge future hollow woke proclamations from Levi’s as well as other companies. It might start to unravel the whole house of cards and we could get back to business.