Stuart Elliott
Generation Y. Generation O (for Obama). Millennials. Echo boomers. Call them what you will, the tens of millions of Americans in their teens and 20s compose a market as hard for advertisers to figure out as it is alluring and lucrative.
Along comes Levi Strauss & Co. with a campaign for its flagship Levi?s brand, hoping to appeal to those younger consumers with an ambitious call to arms: ?Go forth.?
The campaign includes commercials on television, online and in movie theatres; print; outdoor activities and transit signs and posters; social media sites such as Facebook; event marketing; and a contest on a section of the brand?s own website (levi.com/goforth).
It is meant to buff the image of the Levi?s brand as much as sell products such as 501 button-fly jeans. The hope is that ?Go forth? will resonate with young America today the same way that campaigns such as ?501 blues? and ?501 U.S.A?. successfully appealed to a generation two decades ago.
The ?Go forth? campaign is replete with Americana imagery, in keeping with research indicating that teenagers and 20-somethings are patriotic and optimistic about the US. The campaign is the first work for the Levi?s brand from Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Oregon. In December, the agency became the brand?s creative agency in the US, where Levi Strauss spends about $80 million a year on advertising. The assignment had previously been handled by the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty; other offices of Bartle Bogle continue to create campaigns for Levi?s in markets like Europe.
At Levi Strauss, San Francisco, Doug Sweeny, vice-president for Levi?s brand marketing, said the battle cry was to determine ?how do we connect the 150-year-old brand with the youth culture today.?