Will you just look at this logo!?
It has everything that makes something cool for a brand - Historical placement / Craftmanship / Quality / Originality / A pair of jeans so STRONG that even a pair of dudes whipping horses outwest trying to rip them apart cannot even manage that. Shame on those cowboys.
The logo is more US than Ralph Lauren, and in my silly opinion, the Olympic team USA should have all been dressed in Levi Denim (SURELY some science geek could have come up with a breathable denim of some sorts)
We know already that jeans are prison-clothing. Denim was the material chosen as garb for the garbage of society in America to wear as it was relatively cheap to make and DURABLE. Therein one single pair of jeans could last a convict almost as long as his sentence. Depending on how naughty he had been. The whole low-slung belt thing in American hip-hop culture is also to do with prisons and how hard a man is - so we can tell that coolness is something to do with naughtiness. The people locked up have ultimately rioted against society - and us on the outside, work that rebellion into our fashion.
To explain the low-slung look that people in the hood wear, which then translated across to us here in the UK and teenage boys who show their boxers as being cool will be a tiny aside - as you would only be issued one belt for a stretch in prison back in the day, the longer you were inside, the more your trousers would fall down as the belt became more loose. Therefore the lower your trousers, the longer your stretch, the badder your crime and therefore again, the more dangerous to society you were. People who are dangerous are powerful as they are scary. Being against society is cool.
Obviously being a murderer is not cool at all, but you might catch my overarching drift. OF COURSE none of the teenage boys who wear their jeans low or used to, as this fashion is now out, know about the background history, and just do it because they follow the crowd. Fashion is set by people in the know, and sometimes I think they must be having a laugh at society in general. But fashion is all about cool isn't it anyway.
So, back to Levi's and why they are such a great brand.
Images Levi conjures up in its brand representation for me -
-Western films (think Clint Eastwood in Lucky Seven)
-California sunshine (think Katy Perry in jean hotpants)
-Hard workers (think that dude who works at a welding joint for example, high work ethic demands high durability clothing and Levis are relied upon to provide for ALL demographics irregardless of class)
-Your grandad, or that old dude, that MALE PROTAGONIST in his no-nonsense levis. The oldest test of time is time, and Levis have been established since BYGONES AGO - 1873 infact
-1873 - The inception of Levis - think of the historical period - the Gold Rush ! The looneys who followed the American Dream and perhaps think of Abraham Lincoln
-Blue - the colour of denim, the colour of the USA stiped flags, the colour of the ocean that America is in - think how big the country is in relation to the world - how powerful, how many people there are in it etc etc etc etc.
Branding Power is about having an audience (the consumer) who TRUST the name (the product)
As Levi's were the Original Jean, there is not much effort that it has to put in nowadays. See the advert above - it only reinforces the Brand Image that already has been propagated throughout time. That Pioneer spirit. Because not many people care to know about where their Jeans come from, and mainly will buy a Label, Levi's is a trustworthy label to spend money on. It already has cool power because of all of the cool people you have seen in films, or any other representations of culture and society. I bet even David Cameron has a pair of Levis.
The appeal of Levis is so broad that absolutely everyone is going to have owned a pair at one stage of their life. Anybody who rates quality will buy them and anyone who sees someone wearing them but does not necessarily care about the quality of their clothing, will buy them too because of fashion. So the advertising campaigns of Levis obviously today include a lot of sex-appeal. When sex-appeal is about being comfortable with yourself, everyone laps it up. More-so than lap-dancers. Levis have sex-appeal because the advertising campaigns also have youth appeal. Young and Old but SO MUCH COOLER than a pair of GAP Jeans. Gap is just not a cool brand is it. It is too on-the-safe-side. Too many mums buy their Jeans from Gap. (Properly known as The Gap). Levis have the rock n' roll appeal. A Hells Angel will assuredly have a pair in his own wardrobe as will the next person. You can just DO MORE in durable clothes. You are probably doing something cool when you're wearing jeans.
Jeans are not a suit.
Suits connate work
Work is boring and establishment
Jeans are for your day off
Levis are for your day off
Therein we have analysed the BRAND OF LEVIS in a rough sketch. There are absolutely no facts in this piece and it is full of gaping black holes. There is no footnote or much detail on dates and people who came up with how to make jeans, or any real stuff that would flesh out the piece. But details are not needed in branding as the overall abstract is what is being sold. So forgive me for being not interested in showing-off pointless facts. Branding is about Imagery. Imagery is about Pictures. Pictures are more important than the dates they were made, or who made them. We all look at pictures by great artists BEFORE we check-out the date and the material used to put them in context don't we?
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