Since Nick Kamen's unforgettable strip in the 1985 'Launderette' ad, accompanied by Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through the Grapevine, activity for Levi 501s has been synonymous with music.
But in the first TV ads for the brand since 1998, its creative agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, decided to reflect the jeans' originality by using dialogue for the first time.
'Hot Dog' is one of three executions for the range and appears in this week's Adwatch table at number 17, with a recall of 38%.
It features a man walking up to a fast-food stand and asking the girl behind the counter for a hot dog.
She passes him one, but instead of reaching for ketchup or mustard, he grabs a bottle of chocolate sauce.
"People say that chocolate sauce doesn't go good with hot dogs," he says - to which she replies that's because "it doesn't fit". But he counters by asking: "Why does everything have to fit? Look at my skinny ass in these jeans right here. They don't fit, but they look good."
The man then takes a bite of the hot dog - and promptly spits it out.
The ad closes with the tagline 'Levi's 501 jeans with anti-fit'.
"The ad flags up the fact that the jeans have been remodelled and modernised," says BBH business director Rob Farmer. "We wanted to communicate in a different way from the old ad formula. It still needed to feel like a 501 ad, but be a slice of life with real people talking about the jeans."
The other two ads in the campaign - 'Doorman' and 'Hispanic'- also adopt a personal approach through discourse. The three 30-second TV executions are accompanied by five ten-second spots, that feature fresh creative rather than being cut-downs.
The work is part of wider activity that includes an updated Levi's web site with a dedicated 501 area, an outdoor campaign bought by Poster Publicity, print ads in lifestyle magazines and radio work. Media was by Starcom Motive.
_1.jpg)
.jpg)