Levi's Aren't Just Your Mom's Jeans Anymore

I know this isn't news, but advertising isn't always (ever?) what it seems!

According to an article in Forbes magazine in 2000, the increasingly disinterested customer base of Levi Strauss & Company jeans put them in a desperate state of trying to reinvent their "cool factor," as sales plummeted and their more "hip" competitors thrived. Said the chief executive of the company, "Levi's still means stiff, blue denim." So what did they do? They began a new advertising campaign in an attempt to recapture their once flourishing customer base, of course. 

Thus began their collection of ads called "Go Forth" in 2009. The ads that have been released since the debut are fraught with images of the young and the free, running through fields with flags of rebellion and standing boldly on the brink of new horizons at the seashore. And all set to the raw and inspiring poetry of Charles Bukowski's The Laughing Heart and Walt Whitman's Pioneers! O Pioneers! 

Pretty inspiring, right? It certainly makes wearing Levi jeans look much more glamorous and romanticized than the stiff, blue denim the chief executive of the company was talking about. Well that's all fine and dandy (although I don't know about you, but I have never felt the urge to march through city streets in rebellion from putting on a pair of jeans. But then again, I haven't had a pair of Levi jeans since maybe the 6th grade.) 

This is where things get really interesting though. In 2010 they launched an addition to their "Go Forth" campaign, which involves the small and deteriorating town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. According to an article in the New York Times in 2009:

"The state has classified it a 'distressed municipality' — bankrupt, more or less — since the Reagan administration. The tax base is gone. So are most of the residents. The population, about 18,000 after World War II, has declined to less than 3,000. Many of those who remain are unemployed. Real estate prices fell 50 percent in the last year."

So who steps in, just a year after this article was written? None other than our trusty friends at Levi Strauss & Co. And now they're singing a little different of a tune. Here's one of their commercials about Braddock: 

Makes you feel good, right? Seems like there's hope for this little town. Seems like there's hope for all of us actually, as we view this commercial from the perspective of a financially strained country. After all, what's more American than rebirth and hard work (and Levi's jeans?) It certainly hits home anyway. 

But Levi Strauss's campaign to help Braddock "get to work" has spurred some intriguing debate about the motives behind their interest in this small town. For all their grassroots American sentiments, Levi doesn't have a single factory in the United States besides the headquarters in San Francisco. Sure they're donating money to the community center and local library, but what the good people of Braddock, PA really need are jobs, not a new pair of jeans to wear while they browse through books on a nice new shelf. 

According to an article in a Pittsburg, PA newspaper in 2010: 

"You could say that Levi's is using the struggling neighborhood to form their image and get extra karmic points. You could say that they are exploiting the misfortunes of the area for their own advantage. The ad campaign itself makes little sense."

So anyway, what is Levi Strauss & Co. telling us? That there are new horizons for us to explore. That there is freedom to be captured. And that we can rebuild our country from whatever shambles it may be in with a little hard work. But only if we buy their jeans! And don't worry, that money we spend on their products won't even go back into our economy or provide a job for any American worker. There's more to it than meets the eye, I'd say! Interesting, isn't it?