Levi's and Wieden + Kennedy

In December of 2008, Levi’s changed advertising agencies and hired Wieden + Kennedy, an agency which had done many epic ads for Nike.The spots were initially shown in movie theatres in 2009 and then moved to television. They “go from traditional advertising and digital promotions to social media and mobile—the interactive campaign encouraged consumers to ‘go forth’ in provocative new ways. “We didn’t start with digital, because it’s more important to disrupt the market in a way that people look at this TV commercial, the execution, as part of a larger [multichannel] campaign and say ‘This is not really the Levi’s I know, this is a refreshed Levi’s brand.’ Coehn-Szulc says.


Levi’s is not the only brand embracing digital media. The Dockers Super Bowl television commercial became interactive by letting smartphone users tag the ad to get branded mobile content. Dockers partnered with Shazam to develop an integrated program that let consumers who watched the new Dockers “Men Without Pants” TV commercial use their mobile devices to engage at a deeper level with the brand. “The Dockers brand is always seeking to engage consumers in ways that are meaningful and relevant,” said Jen Sey, vice president of global marketing at Dockers, San Francisco. “With the explosion in mobile technologies and consumers increasingly turning to their smartphones for discovery and engagement, we wanted to make sure we were connecting with them on their terms. The integration of Shazam was developed in partnership with Ignition Factory, a creative media specialty unit of Dockers’ media buying agency OMD, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc. Viewers who installed Shazam on their smartphones can tag the TV spot and are taken to a branded-content landing page. There consumers can read about the “Wear the Pants” campaign and learn about or buy the “I Wear No Pants” music track. The ad debut also included a khaki pant giveaway promotion that could be entered on the spot via consumer mobile devices with the Shazam technology. The khaki give away ran Feb. 7–15. The commercial continues through 2010 on a variety of shows and networks including the NBA on TNT, FX, Comedy Central and the Discovery Channel. The “Wear the Pants” global ad campaign launched in December 2009 and is integrated with broadcast, print, billboard, radio, social media, events and digital marketing. The campaign has stirred up gender debate which is excellent for Dockers and their memorability.