We are all Workers

Levi's effort marks new steps toward post-advertising by both a very traditional brand and its formerly very traditional ad agency, Weiden and Kennedy. In its most recent quarterly earnings call with analysts, Levi's attributed its recently increasing sales--up 8% worldwide--to higher-quality, better-designed jeans.

They now have a high-quality, more engaging advertising--specifically a series of mini-documentaries about the efforts to save Braddock, PA, a rusted and debilitated steel town on Pittsburgh's edge that is fighting for survival. The documentary series is one of the big new initiatives in the jeans-maker's "Go Forth" ad campaign, now entering its second year.
Ad and promotion spending was up nearly a fifth for the second quarter and almost a third for the first half of this year. Most of the $32 million in increased spend (from $97.9 million in first-half 2009 to $129.6 million in the same period this year) has been lavished on marketing for Levi's and Dockers in the US, the company reported.
Part of that extra $32 million went to fund journalism. Levi's, partnering with IFC and the Sundance Channel, is creating filmed reports on the efforts to turn around the failing community of Braddock. The mini-documentaries, which presumably will be cut into a feature-length documentary one day, are being parceled out on Levi's brand website in roughly 4-6-minute segments. The resulting series, thus far, represents a kind of community journalism that rarely gets done in these hard times for the news business. So Levi's efforts are notable as a rare example of a brand reporting the news.