Levi Strauss CEO | Time to vote initiative
Levi Strauss is among the more than 1,000 companies behind the ‘Time to Vote’ initiative, helping their employees register to vote as election day approaches. Companies such as Walmart, Target, and Coca-Cola are also participating. Chip Bergh, president and CEO and Levi Strauss, joins ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC.
Transcript
joining us now is chip berg he’s
president and CEO
of Levi Strauss chip great to have you
here
great to see you helping people
no problem I want to talk about what
you’re doing to help people
you know with their civic duty here to
vote and whether you had any hesitation
getting on board with something like
this given even the process
of voting in this election by mail and
otherwise has become
politically charged and heated well this
uh this effort called to make time to vote
uh actually goes back to the midterm
elections back in 2018.
the 2016 presidential election had the
lowest voter turnout
of registered voters uh in history and
less than 50 percent of
registered voters showed up for the
the presidential election in 2016.
and so for the 2018 uh midterm elections
we
joined with uh with Patagonia
and with Paypal two of my favorite CEO
partners
and we led this coalition to try to get
a collection of companies to join us
in giving their employees time off to
vote one of the major barriers to voting
we’re one of the few democracies in the
world
where election day happens on a workday
it’s not a holiday
it’s not a weekend it falls on
workday
and as you probably know the greatest
lines at the polls
are before work and after work so the
idea was
partner with companies to encourage them
to give their employees time off so that
they can go to the polls and be sure
to fulfill their civic duty
the midterm elections had the highest
voter turnout
I think in part because of our effort um
since the 1960s
and so we decided uh given the
significance and the importance of the
upcoming elections
and given the challenges, as you said you
know in the middle of a pandemic
we decided to renew this effort and set
a goal to
establish to get a thousand companies to
join us
and we just passed that goal a week
ago and
now we’re marching towards 1500 and
hopefully, we’ll get more after this uh
this little segment
but um you know and that represents uh
companies from
all 50 states from all industries
basically, we have two of the
country’s largest employers with Walmart
and target joining us
and the whole idea is to educate inform
your
employees and ensure that they’ve got
the opportunity and the time
to go vote
yeah I don’t know why this country holds
elections on Tuesday and not on
weekends but that’s another conversation
for another day
I wanted to ask about what your
the expectation is for consumers around
an election every day someone comes on this
network
and says we’re expecting volatility we
expect uncertainty both about
the outcome of the election and whether
we’ll even get an outcome
of the election do you expect that to
trickle-down into
the uncertainty that could impact consumer
spending and behavior
well there’s you know there is no
shortage of uncertainty today because of
the pandemic and
and the economic fallout from that and
and certainly the election
will likely contribute to more
uncertainty
but I’m very very hopeful that um you
know we will get through this process
um that the process and the
process in the system of voting is going
to work
um regardless of whether uh an
individual
goes to the polls or does mail-in voting
absentee voting um that there’s going to
be a clear
an outcome to the elections at all
levels and not just talking about the
presidential election or the federal
elections
it’s just important just as important
with uh all of the social justice
and racial equality issues that this
country is facing
that we get strong voter turnouts to
send a signal to our elected officials
at the city level
at the county level at the state level
those elections are just as important
and I think
if consumers or individuals feel
satisfied that their voice has been
heard at the
at the polls, consumer confidence will
roar
chip uh how strong sorry excuse me, Chris
uh how strong is the uh
so sorry it is chip but my my my my uh
sincere apologies I’ve
dug my own hole there I’ll slowly
try and climb out
um just wanted to ask you what
the consumer is uh looking like though at
the moment in the absence of another
um stimulus uh bill do you think that
we’re gonna be
heading uh meaningfully south again in
terms of retail spending consumer
spending
well um we’re in the middle of our quiet
period so I can’t give you a lot of
a lot of specifics about our business
but you know since we’ve been able to
reopen our stores
uh which goes back to kind of late may
early June
around the world by the way because
we’re a big global company and global
brand
we’ve seen really strong uh consumer
uptake
um we literally you know because we have
to limit the traffic going into our
stores we
oftentimes have lines out the door of
consumers waiting to get into the Levi’s
store
our brand has arguably never been
stronger
and um you know and we’re seeing the
consumers are coming into the store kind
of on a mission
i mean the other big thing that’s
happened through the pandemic and i
know
you’ve talked about it a lot on this
program
um is that is the shift to digital and
the shift to e-commerce
and that is something that I believe
is
going to sustain but there are going to
be a number of consumer trends
that that the pandemic has created that
I believe are going to be sustainable
the shift to digital is one focus on
sustainability is another one
I think the consumer is going to be much
more focused on conscious consumption as
opposed to conspicuous consumption
and a lot of these dynamics and a lot of
these trends really play to
our sweet spot as a brand
