Assessment of Levi Advertising Campaign
Levi's have been around for more than a century. The company was
established in 1853. In 2003, Levi Strauss & Co. was 150 years old. In
1873 their founder, Levi Strauss created the first blue jeans. From
the mid 1950's onwards, jeans have been especially associated with
particular types of male American youth heroes, including James Dean,
the young Marlon Brando, & their Sixties followers - heroes who have
become symbols of youth & rebellion in almost all areas, spanning over
5 generations of American & global culture.
When Levi's were first brought out, their target audience was youths,
teenagers. Unfortunately as time went on, the teens that had
originally bought them grew older and Levis started losing its youth
market and sales fell so Levi's needed a new strategy. They planned
advertisements to appeal to a younger generation. Levi's were then
thought to be worn by working-class people for leisure-wear, or worn
by the middle-class as work-wear. The jeans had grown to be thought of
being boring, dull and unfashionable. They prepared to take on a new
image. Levi Strauss & Co. planned to breakdown the stereotypical
barrier that the public had built up regarding their jeans.
When Levi's first released this succession of commercials, they
planned to change the public's view towards jeans in general. Their
target audience was set. The idea was that they could recreate their
original reputation in the 1950's for the new generation. In the
1950's the Levi's brand was known for its original design, it's strong
hardwearing fabric and it was a symbol of American culture. Their
jeans were classi...
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...ith the pretty girls. This is an instant incentive for the audience
to go out and buy Levis Jeans because Levis men are in control, sexy,
laid back and always get what they what. In 'The Beach' advert, the
girl actually put the jeans on; this is not the usual Levis style. At
that time you rarely saw women wearing jeans which is why this advert
is revolutionary. The message within the advert is that Levis are for
every one regardless of their gender, occupation and age.
Almost all of the adverts in this commercial campaign have very sexy
heroes & heroines. This series promoted Levi's sales of 501's quite
dramatically, obviously having a large impact on the consuming public.
They promoted Levi's as being an intrinsic part of a great American
tradition and embodied the American ideal of freedom & daring to be
different.
In the article, Jesus is a Brand of Jeans, by Jean Kilbourne, we get an insightful look into the effects of advertising on us, as human beings. As we all know, humans let us down. We are imperfect beings, going about life interacting with each other, good and bad. It seems though, over the past 50 years advertising has taken away from human value, and brain washed us into thinking stuff is more important than people.
Having invested 27 million dollars and eleven years of research, Du Pont de Nemours Inc. roused world-wide interest when the company displayed the first ever nylon stockings in the New York World Fair in 1938. Nylon apparel, including women's lingerie and foundation garments, soon appeared on the American market in wide varieties. Unfortunately, the quantities were limited. Women paid deathly high pre-war prices to obtain a pair of these famous nylons; they quickly became a symbol of status and wealth (Ewing, 111). Its heyday, however, was brief, for in February 1942, America's nylon literally went to war with the soldiers, and nylon stockings temporarily became extinct. Post-war attitudes toward nylons and other underwear drastically differed from those of the pre-war. This 1952 Du Pont Nylon ad coincides with this change. The advertisement indicates not only the remaining post-war patriotic sentiments, but also the progress women made since the 1930's in obtaining more freedom, independence, and simplified lifestyle.
In the 1997 article Listening to Khakis, published in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell effectively paints a vivid picture of the thought and science that goes into advertising campaigns. Gladwell begins his paper by focusing on the Dockers’ advertising campaign for their line of adult male khaki pants, which he labels as extremely successful. This campaign was the first line of successful fashion advertisements aimed directly toward adult males (Gladwell, 1997). This campaign was cunningly simple and showed only males wearing the pants being advertised with the background noise filled with men having a casual conversation (Gladwell, 1997). This tactic was used because studies showed that Dockers’ target market felt an absence in adult male friendships. (Gladwell, 1997). The simplicity of the advertisements was accentuated as to not to deter possible customers by creating a fashion based ad because, based on Gladwell’s multiple interviews of advertising experts, males shy away from being viewed as fashion forward or “trying to hard” (Gladwell, 1997).
Are women still seen as being homemakers in modern-day society, and are they being sold a domestic lifestyle? It appears that Martha Stewart believes so and desires to continue a trend. For example, in the July/August 2014 issue of Martha Stewart Living, one could argue that women are stereotypically represented as being homemakers in a KitchenAid advertisement, which shows a woman placing a dirty pan in a KitchenAid dishwasher. Moreover, the eye-catching, bold headline, shown on the ad of the American home appliance brand is “cook like you don’t have to clean.” The ad goes further with promoting an ideal familial status of women by using subliminal advertising and product placement techniques to represent the ultimate kitchen. Furthermore, it targets the values and lifestyles of the typical wife with its controversial headline, and it goes on with a plain-folks pitch, which focuses on a conventional established role of women in society.
Levi's had sold to Wal-Mart through a value brand called Brittania in the 80's and the 90s, but that came to an end in 1994 over a dispute in Canada about Levi's Orange Tab jeans. After that, sales dwindled for Brittania, and Levi's sold Brittania to VF Corp. In 2002, however, Levi's was thinking about offering a new value brand for Wal-Mart. It was not that easy of a decision though. They had to think of a way to keep the existing customers in the other channels and not lessen the brand's perceived quality overall.
During John F. Kennedy’s political campaign, there were many issues present that the candidate had to address: there was tension due to the communist threat, tension among American citizens due to the Civil Rights movement, and a recent recession that was very sluggish in recovering. Relating to these issues President Kennedy’s slogan was “getting America moving again”; these topics are addressed in a fast and effective manner in his minute-long television ad that was endorsed by the group: Citizens for Kennedy-Johnson. This ad was the best way to reinforce President Kennedy’s stance on the emergence of a new frontier. He was able to depict himself as a man of change and new beginnings due to his fresh perspective and young age which was a
Texts are political. Political in the sense that they produce messages that carry specific ideas and beliefs targeted toward a certain thinking body of people. A familiar phrase in America is, “art imitates life.” It defines life as essential to art, but can we say the reverse? Could life imitate art? The semantics of the phrase seem too ambiguous for such a statement. What is the definition of art, of life? The phrase suggests that art reinforces cultural and social beliefs by using the verb imitate. If art imitates life, then life imitates art. The verb is reflexive and positioned in the middle of the two words it is reflecting. It is true then, the language speaks for itself, and this political statement can be used as a tool to find the underlying cultural belief within a text.
When Gap was founded in 1969, Gap was unique and new. Gap's target customers were younger generations. Gap's hottest seller at the time was its "basic" look, which consisted of signature blue jeans and white cotton t-shirts. Gap founders realized that jeans were becoming popular among the younger generation of customers. Nevertheless, the company recognized that despite Gaps popularity among the youth, there were not enough assortments of jeans in the clothing outlets. Capitalizing on this deficit was merely the next step in expanding. Gap's founders were sure that jeans could be sold through a chain of small stores devoted solely to that product. As Gaps business idea became successful, Gap expanded their line of offering and now Gap offers a range of clothing for men, women, and children. As Gap's business began to boom, Gap also began to expand. Gap Inc. added two new entities to the company, Banana Republic and Old Navy. All three chains have their own target markets. Banana Republic is known for their casual luxury, with high-quality apparel. Banana Republic tailors their store to appeal to the unique market of pleasing the most fashion conscious consumers.
For starters, blue jeans greatly helped and protected miners. During the mid 1800’s, the California Gold Rush began. People from all over the world came to California in hopes to find gold and wealth. Many of these people became miners, as this was the only way to obtain gold. Searching for gold was a difficult task. It involved a lot of manual labor. Men would have pick axes and shovels. They would have to break apart rocks and go deep into caves. This job would also involve much digging. Due to all of the extreme manual labor, clothes would easily fall apart. It was hard for workers to find clothes that could stand up against these harsh conditions.
I believe that if Levi’s had recognized the market demands the time it start to change and
In the world of fashion, there is denim. It is one of the world’s oldest fabrics, and has been modified and remodelled to go with the latest fashion trends. The first ones who wore this fabric are workers in the California Gold Rush era, designed by Jacob Davis because of its sturdy material that withstood the harsh working conditions. Not just them, even sailors from Italy use this material too as their sailing uniform. Then, it started appearing as an actor’s apparel, and that’s when denim started to become one of a fashion item. People started wearing jeans as part of their daily apparel and even adding their own ideas, such as studs and colouring it with different shades of denim. It doesn’t only stop around that era, but today, they are seen everywhere and has become a major clothing piece for almost all of the age groups. As a reference, we can see young children already wears jeans as part of their clothing, the teenagers added jeans to their wardrobe, and even for the seniors, they consider jeans as a simple and comfortable clothing pieces.
Levi’s is a brand recognizable in the whole wide world. There is no person who wouldn’t be able to associate correctly the Name with the product. LS&Co has managed to create something timeless, just like their classical 501 blue jeans.
The story behind the birth of jeans emerges from an interesting collaboration between an innovative tailor and a bright businessman. In 1853, Levi Strauss established a whole dry goods business in San Francisco, selling clothing and many other products to small general stores all through the west of America. One of many regular costumers was Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno Nevada, who used to purchase his work material from the whole sale house of Levi Strauss & Co. At some point, Davis invented the process to rivet the pocket corners on men’s pants to make them stronger. Having earned great success, Davis decides to write to Levi Strauss, suggesting that they jointly apply for a patent; and Levi agreed. Consequently, in 1873, Levi Strauss & Jacob Davis are granted a patent on the process of riveting pants by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 20. It is patent number 139,121 and this is the invention of the blue jeans.
The advertisement project was a great learning experience on learning what it takes to produce a print ad, and getting harsh feed back from the consumer. The project exposed how hard it is to actually produce a good advertisement that will pop to the consumers eye and reel them in to have interest in buying the product your trying to sell them. In my groups jean print advertisement we used a method from Arthur Asa Berger’s book Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture. We in particular used chapter four, “Running it up a flagpole to see if anyone salutes”, in this chapter Berger says choose a way you want to do an advertisement and do it. The consumer will either like it or not it’s a 50/50 gamble. All you can do is what you think will work and run with it. And that’s basically the approach we had from the minute we were posed with the project. Since we didn’t feel like playing the sex sells card, the group and I felt that chapter four of Berger’s book was the best to use to produce our advertisement. While we learned a lot from this project in understanding advertising and consumer culture, the aspects of the project ranged from the original concept to the survey results of the responses from consumers.
INTRODUCTION: As a retail major at Florida State, I have been able to learn a lot about my love for fashion. One thing that is true about me is that I love to understand the origins behind different subjects, whether that is my family or, in this case, piece of clothing. Perfectly tying those two worlds together, I am going to be talking about the origins of denim jeans. First I will go over the history, then I will go over how jeans became popular, and lastly I will talk