As they always say in business: It takes 10x as much money to get a new customer as it takes to merely keep the existing customers happy. In every woke “business” makeover, you intentionally alienate all of your existing customers to chase new customers, spending 10x more to attract this new supposedly more-desirable customer base than it would have cost you to excite the existing one. When the new “woke” customers do not come — they never do — you now have to spend 20x more to try to attract back your old customers.

But why would they come back? During this period they have either stopped buying the kind of products you sell entirely, and thus do not need your services, or have bought similar products from non-woke vendors, in which case they also do not need your services.

All of your old, undesirable customers remember that you decided that they were old and undesirable, and told them you did not want to sell to them any longer, and only wanted to sell to a new, more desirable (LOL) diverse customer base made up exclusively of People of Color, People of Size, and People of Made-Up Genders.

Why would they come back?

[Great question. I wrote about this earlier, describing their category error in advertising as relying on the didactic rather than the aspirational. Women who buy lingerie probably don’t want to look obese, tranny, or butch, and men who buy lingerie for their spouses or girlfriends don’t aspire to sleeping with the obese, trannies, or the butch either. Ace hits on another problem that brands create with their “woke” campaigns — betrayal. Victoria’s Secret betrayed its customer base just as Bud Light did theirs. Good luck making a comeback, although I think VS will have more room for one since they didn’t go the full Alissa Heinerscheid. — Ed]