Website Of The Week – Levi’s
The website for Levi’s jeans, despite being not much more than a blatant promotion for what can be mediocre and ill-fitting jeans, is incredibly eye-catching.
Its title page is dark and intriguing, and therefore serves its purpose in drawing you into the site. There is some interesting reading on the history of Levi’s, but the way in which the company attempts to tie their brand of jeans in with key social events is somewhat nauseating; see the San Francisco Earthquake and the ‘presence’ of Levi’s at Woodstock. Even worse is the item called ‘Living Denim’ which features many wild, wacky and unconventional Americans like Daron in Durban who surfs in his jeans (fool!) and the Psycho-Billys in San Francisco: “If it’s the opposite of popular we’ll put it on. Yeah, but even the opposite of what’s not popular like, alternative and stuff, like punk. It’s the opposite of the opposite.”
The excellent thing about this website is ‘the ads’ section, where, after downloading them, you can watch all the Levis ads on your screen, smooth as a television picture. The whole section is presented in a funky design, with very easy to use links and short, sharp text.
Despite its obvious Americanisms, the site is well worth a visit and is actually very engaging in places. From it, you can get to ‘Clothes with Roots’, which informs you on any type of jeans you might be interested in. Desperate to distinguish themselves from all other trademarks, they quip: “It’s called the Tab Trademark and, for you trivia fans, impress your friends with this little ‘factoid’: every seventh pair of Levi’sŽ jeans comes with a Tab Trademark that’s blank. It doesn’t say Levi’sŽ on it. It’s not a mistake, it’s one of the ways we protect our legal rights to the Tab Trademark. It’s the least we can do since it’s served us so well for so long.”
To those cynics around, some of the stuff on this site could constitute brainwashing in its subtlest of forms by means of propaganda, but all this can be over-looked due to its sheer style, for which Levi’s are famous. I found the animated ads so beguiling that, just this once, I can forgive all else – which tended towards dull and ineffectual promotion.