That remark was mild compared to another that Wilson made in 2004 to Canada’s National Post Business Magazine—that Japanese consumers struggled to pronounce the three Ls in Lululemon.
“It’s funny to watch them try and say it,” Wilson told the magazine. (In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, Wilson denied making the remark. Wilson resigned in 2015.)
Cool kids only
Abercrombie & Fitch’s late CEO Mike Jeffries—who stepped down in 2014 and recently faced federal charges of sex trafficking and interstate prostitution—also took a low view of many of his own customers. In a 2006 piece in Salon, the CEO shared his wish that all Abercrombie customers be young, slim and handsome.
Everyone else? Get lost.
“Candidly, we go after the cool kids,” Jeffries said. “We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in Abercrombie], and they can’t belong.”
He criticized as “vanilla” other brands that were “trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny.”
No refunds
But when it comes to slamming one’s own customers, few executives beat Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who has insulted his own travelers on several occasions.
O’Leary has reportedly said that those who forget their boarding passes are “stupid.” He’s pillored flyers who ask for refunds: “You’re not getting a refund so **** off.” He’s ridiculed plus-sized passengers, too: “Nobody wants to sit beside a really fat **** on board.”
Meanwhile, as Bally’s future hangs in the balance at Campbell’s, Garza shared how he feels about the rhetorical liberties that corporate brass like Bally take: “He thinks he’s a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company and he can do whatever he wants because he’s an executive.”
