Print Marketing

In the 1970s, for the first time, jeans could be found in everyone’s closet. Their universal appeal changed the way the jeans were marketed, instigating a slew of image-based campaigns.

Before the dawn of the image campaigns, jeans marketing was simple. Levi Strauss & Co.  placed its first print advertisement around 1880. It had been marketing its “patented riveted waist-high overalls” since 1873, and the news of the durable, comfortable garment had spread among miners, railroad workers and cowboys. These advertisements did not sell sex or youth -- instead, they emphasized the quality of the jeans and the durability and strength of denim. Guarantees began to appear on every brand of jean, and publicity stunts and advertisements showed the jeans surviving incredible conditions. Levi’s leather patch still shows two horses trying, without success, to pull apart a pair of jeans; another ad of the time shows a man hanging off a fence while a dog tugs mercilessly at the waist of his pants.Other advertisements featured pensive, happy miners and workers, clad in denim garments. These hand-drawn, sometimes colorful ads were placed in publications like Life or the Saturday Evening Post, while bold white letters declared, “For men who toil.”

Advertisements solely targeted men until 1918, whenLevi’s introduced “Freedom-Alls,” for women. These denim garments were advertised as being“for work or recreation,” and showed pretty young women sweeping floors or readying themselves for a hiking trip.

During both world wars, denim was used for fatigues; back in America it was rationed almost exclusively to workers involved in the war effort. Jeans were hard to come by for civilians. Demand was high nonetheless, fueled by patriotic ads where clean-cut men saluted American flags while looking wistfully to a bright future. By the Second World War, college students began to wear denim as a sign of solidarity with the war’s work effort.

When dude ranches became popular vacation spots for city people in the early ’40s, Western-themed advertisements began to appear around the country. Women, men and children models were dressed in cowboys hats, western-style shirts and short ties. It was around this time that the ads began to feature men and women, flirting. In the ads, a handsome man was usually leaning over, casually, talking to a beautiful woman. In one Levi’s ad from that era, though, a man and a woman sit on their respective horses, their backs to the artist. The man leans over; the woman’s hat brim prevents the reader from seeing the kiss. The horses look back, accusingly, and the tagline reads “Levi’s -- an old western custom.” 

It wasn’t until after World War II that jeans began to be fashionable for casualwear, either in America or Europe. While Europeans marvelled at the newly introduced American work garment, American teenagers -- a relatively “new” demographic -- donned the jeans to rebel against their parents. The image of jeans was even more connected with the idea of rebellion when they were seen in the movies, like on Marlon Brando in “The Wild One” or James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.” This counter-culture, anti-establishment attitude was not reflected in the advertisements, though. Denim was advertised as being for the whole family, characterized by Madison Avenue with happy children at play and peaceful adults lounging.

Also by the early ’50s, the first denim innovations began to take place. Wrangler popularized black denim, dressing TV rodeo star Hopalong Cassidy in it head-to-toe. White denim was invented. Levi Strauss & Co. introduced jeans the color of Jell-O. Advertisements proudly showcased these innovations.

In 1966 Levi Strauss & Co. ran it’s first television commercial -- the first jeanswear commercial ever. Entitled“Prospector,” it was a far cry from the controversial, sexually-charged commercials to come. Still, the new medium changed the way all jeanswear advertisers operated, expanding their minds as well as those of the consumers. 

By the ’70s, jeans were more than a counter-culture trend -- it wasn’t just the hippies and rebels anymore. To catch the target audience’s attention, now, jeans advertisements used modern artists. Some advertisements were surrealistic and space-age, showing Escher-like drawings of three-legged jeans drifting through space. Others, like those done by Californian artist Bruce Wolfe, still used a Western theme. A European campaign at the time put jeans on classic art works -- advertisements featured Michelangelo’s “David” wearing jeans, and his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel suddenly showed God and Adam exchanging jeans when they touched fingers. Jeans were being lauded as part of the past, epitomizing the present and defining the future. Everyone, from Western cowboys to Renaissance-era visions of God, wore jeans.

Fueled by the disco era, the designer jeans craze took off in the late ’70s. It was CalvinKlein’s 1978 advertisement featuring Brooke Shields that changed the face of American denim advertising forever. Photographed by famed fashion photographerRichard Avedon, the pictures focused on Shields’ bejeaned legs, barely-buttoned shirt and exposed midriff. A parallel television campaign featured Shields swinging her legs over her head, tugging at her jeans and asking audiences, “Know what comes between me and myCalvins?Nothing.”

It was with that advertisement that jeans -- which had been a symbol of sexy rebelliousness and individuality since the ’50s -- became the official undisputed fashion symbol of sex and youth. 

Americans were shocked by the Calvin Klein ad, which some accused of encouraging child pornography. On the other side of the Pond, Europeans had already been introduced to a shocking campaign in 1973. “Those who love will follow me,” one ad from the Italian jeansmaker Jesus Jeans proclaimed. “You will have no other jeans but me.” Catholic Italy was outraged by the ad’s copy, not to mention the accompanying photographs of model Donna Jordan’s nether regions, barely covered by pair of high-cut, skin-tight jean shorts. 

While some advertisements show a sweeter side of love (like Lee’s), others have focused on lust. During the designer craze, back pockets were a popular subject for the photographers. Models were shown romping in the ocean wearing tight, wet jeans; as the trend continued the models became less and less clothed; sometimes almost entirely nude. In one advertisement a single back pocket is drawn on a model’s bare behind.

Jeansmakers like Calvin Klein, Guess and Diesel have all tugged at the boundaries of good taste, but in 1995 Calvin Klein went beyond anyone’s idea of taste with a campaign featuring young, pre-teen models in various stages of undress, shot by fashion photographer Steven Meisel. The TV commercials in this campaign were mostly responsible for offending so many, but even the print portion of the campaign was pulled. Eventually, public pressure lead to an FBIinvestigation, which was ultimately dropped. 

Regardless of what print campaigns show, they are different than television advertising in significant ways. They are less expensive than national television advertising. Magazine’s pass-along rates make print advertising a generally more successful forum for jeansmakers’ messages. Because of the opportunity to dwell on each picture, print campaigns are seen by jeansmakers as strong reinforcements of their television campaigns, if they have them. For most who advertise on television, they admit their televised campaigns couldn’t exist without their print campaigns.

And while television ads can include mood music -- everything from ’50s rock to New Age has been used -- and voiced-over slogans and ideas, the print ads must have tightly written copy and strong, powerful images. Due to the artistic, cutting-edge nature of most jeanswear print marketing, these images are often left open to interpretation.

“In the last campaign, I had two girls holding hands and people tried to read something into it. Why?”asked PaulMarciano, the president and creative director of Guess Jeans, in a recent magazine interview. “As the person creating the ads, you have to look for what people see in a picture, but you have to follow your own feelings. What people see depends who’s looking at the picture.”

David Lachapelle, who often photographs Diesel’s print ads, agrees. He feels that each of his photographs represent a story, left to the viewer to create, saying that each Diesel ad has enough things in the picture to keep the viewer’s eye for a long time; they incorporate not only beauty, but also humor, surrealism, and also sometimes serve as a platform for social issues. They appeal to a consumer who is looking to have and be fun, with a certain lifestyle in mind. According to LaChapelle, Diesel advertisements possess “Italian style, Anglo Saxon humor, and Nordic weirdness.”

Drastically different campaigns are used in Europe and America. President of the French brand Bensimon, Serge Bensimon, said French denim advertising is not sexy because “the people aren’t thinking about sex when they’re buying clothes.” Whereas Americans like to show off sex more, Bensimon said, the French are more liberal when it comes to the act itself -- and vice versa. This affects advertising, he said. 

Jeans advertising campaigns of the last twenty years have used highly interpretable image campaigns because a basic tenet of the jeans industry is that brand image is everything. Regardless of the quality of the product, in order to even get people to try their product jeans companies need to sell a specific “cool” or “sexy” or “relaxed” image. Some would say this is because the only jean that sells continually well is the basic, five-pocket, straight-legged jean -- and Levi’s has cornered the idea with its 501s. 

“The jeans that come in, fly by night, they’re in for six months, they’re gone for six months -- yeah, they exist,”says Micheal Press, president, Todd Oldham. “They’re partially responsible for the ups and downs of denim. What jean do you want to buy next? I want to buy a classic, 501-esque jean. I want a used jean, a dark used jean, I want a blue jean with rivets on the pockets, with a button fly, with a leather patch on the waistband and seven belt loops. It’s always the same, no matter what innovation anybody comes up with, the next great innovation is going to be a classic fit, five-pocket blue jean in a standard used color.”

With the basic jeans image taken, jeans companies are forced into image advertising; they have tried to make the simple act of wearing jeans an experience in and of itself.

“I don’t hard sell anything,” Calvin Klein said in a 1984 Playboy interview. “There is no way to advertise jeans today by trying to push the jeans and make them interesting; it’s been done. The only way to advertise is by not focusing on the product. Some people feel that what we’re doing makes no sense, that it’s just a waste of money. But it’s working. My attitude is, ‘If you want to sell jeans, don’t talk about them.’”

“We never talk about the features and benefits about the jeans,” says Steve Goldstein, vice president of marketing at Levi Strauss & Co. “We always talk directly to what is important to the target audience, and nothing is more important to the target audience than themselves and the transitions they are going through.”