Åhléns ends politically correct advertising: “Too much”

Published 13 October 2024 at 09.05

Economy. The liberal department store giant Åhléns was close to “go woke, go broke” when it was bought at the last moment by the Swedish-Arab entrepreneur Ayad Al-Saffar, 60. He changed the company's marketing and states today that if you want to sell products to ordinary normal Swedes, it must be those who are also seen in the advertising.
– It may sound racist but it is not, says Al-Saffar to Handelsbanken's media channel EFN.

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It sounds like a story Erik Ullenhag or Annie Lööf could have put together. But Ayad Al-Saffar actually came to Sweden as a refugee in 1984 and went from berry picker and door salesman to acquiring and turning around four loss-laden giant companies – including Ur & Penn and Åhléns – to profitable chains.

Two years ago, he bought a mismanaged Åhléns in crisis from the wealthy left-wing debater and politician Antonia Ax:son Johnson (L). A year later, Åhléns reported a profit for the first time in over a decade.

Handelsbanken's financial channel EFN has conducted a longer interview with Ayad Al-Saffar this week and states that something that “really engaged” the new owner of Åhlén's is the marketing, which he immediately changed because it was far too politically correct when he took over the chain.

In the interview, Al-Saffar mentions an example when Åhléns marketed make-up using pictures of a black man applying make-up.

– It becomes too much, states Al-Saffar.

< b>Took the PK department by the ear
He also describes how it happened when, as the new owner, he was forced to take Åhlén's politically correct marketing department by the ear, as the department had by this time embarked on a destructive politically correct line that brought Åhléns to the brink of ruin with failing customer base.

In the US, the phenomenon has been called “go woke, go broke” and occurs when politically correct advertising agencies and marketing managers start to focus on mastering the customers in norm criticism and diversity instead of trying to sell the company's products to the real target group, which are still mostly quite normal white people if the chain is based in the West.

Al-Saffar had to take it from the beginning.

– I said it as it was: my daughters will not buy make-up at Åhléns because this guy wears make-up. What's wrong with having pictures of ordinary girls when it's ordinary girls who shop with us? It might sound racist, but it's not because it's ordinary, simple marketing, he tells EFN and continues:

– Åhlén customers must recognize themselves in the images we show. Sometimes it gets way too woke. When I bought Åhléns, it was as if they could never show a Swedish guy or girl in the advertising and it would be too odd.

In the run-up to Christmas shopping, he also takes the opportunity to see the trend with advertising messages where you can see “families” celebrating Christmas, but where everyone in the family has a different ethnicity.

– I ask the marketing department: who do you celebrate Christmas with? Your family or your friends? Your family! Then we should have families in our pictures and not groups of friends, says Al-Saffar to EFN.

Hated by DN
In the interview, Ayad Al-Saffar also says that he sees it as a challenge to be able to open Åhléns and other store chains that he owns in small Swedish towns that lack such community services today, and that this is what he wants to be remembered for.

It also appears that he fell out of favor with a liberal Swedish media group and that he was forced to port Dagens Nyheter from Åhléns because they only write negative articles about him, in which he is portrayed as a money-grubbing and vulgar immigrant.

“He grew up in extreme luxury and has since worked single-mindedly to get that existence back,” one of them begins. “The day starts with a swim and an hour later Ayad Al Saffar drives his Bentley to work,” says another.

Ayad Al-Saffar himself believes that his attempt to make life in the Swedish countryside should get more attention.

– I can disappear tomorrow but it's my actions that remain, they're the ones that count, not what kind of car I sit in or what I look like. DN are completely fixated on it.

– I want to give life back to the small towns. That is what should be my legacy. It is a great promise and a great commitment to which I dedicate my life. What DN writes? That I drive a Bentley, he tells the UN.